Hostile Work Environment Category Archives — New York Employment Attorney Blog Published by New York Employment Lawyers

March 10, 2023

Sexual Harassment, ‘Continuing Violations,’ and Hostile Work Environment Claims in New York

For some workers, sexual harassment is something that can force them to confront some difficult choices, like whether or not to leave their job. Even if you’ve decided to stay in your current workplace, it is important to contact a knowledgeable New York sexual harassment lawyer as soon as possible. The law erects some strict deadlines for taking action and failure to meet those deadlines potentially can have extremely harmful impacts.

For some other workers, these deadlines may trigger a loss of certain older pieces of evidence. For others, though, the law may allow you to use older incidents of harassment, even if they occurred outside the window of “timeliness” that the law generally allows.

One scenario in which that’s true is something called a “continuing violation,” of which a recent sexual harassment case from Westchester County is a good example.

November 9, 2022

Defaults Judgments and How to Get One in Your New York Sexual Harassment Case

by Phillips & Associates

As most people — lawyers and non-lawyers alike — know, most civil lawsuits start with a complaint, followed by a response from the defense, after which comes pre-trial discovery and motions, possible settlement negotiations, and if the case is still unresolved, a trial. Sometimes, though, cases don’t follow that usual path. An experienced New York City sexual harassment lawyer can help your hostile work environment case in lots of ways, especially when your case doesn’t follow the typical pattern listed above.

For example, what do you do when you file your sexual harassment complaint and the defense responds by doing… nothing?

That was the scenario facing B.M., a woman working in the investments and finance business. She was a successful hedge fund analyst and consultant who, in 2021, took a position in investor relations with a Lower Manhattan-based firm.

October 10, 2022

New York Hostile Work Environment Cases and the Use of Racist Paraphernalia as Props in Incidents of Severe Harassment

by Phillips & Associates

People on social media often question something still being “a thing in [the current year].” The phrase is meant to convey frustration, disbelief, or contempt about some antiquated notion, viewpoint, or belief still occurring in our modern world. One would certainly hope that truly grotesque and blatantly offensive displays of racism in New York workplaces would no longer be “a thing,” but the news and court case filings tell a different — and more depressing — reality. Whether what you encountered was a noose, a banana, gorilla jokes, a KKK hood, or some other insignia of overt racial hostility, don’t wait to take the necessary legal action, and make sure you start with retaining a knowledgeable New York race discrimination lawyer.

In one of the most recent hostile work environment incidents, K.P., a Black man from Brooklyn, allegedly endured gorilla jokes, complete with props.

K.P. started working as a night-shift dispatcher for a distribution-systems provider headquartered upstate. There were also various isolated instances of epithets like “Uncle Tom,” “coon,” “jigaboo,” and the N-word, the last of which was used in connection with the holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, according to the complaint.

July 29, 2022

How to Pursue a Case in New York that Establishes a Hostile Work Environment ‘in the Aggregate’

by Phillips & Associates

The phrase “holistic approach” is popular in many fields these days, from education to healthcare to business. The word holistic, according to the Oxford Dictionary, means “characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.” What does that have to do with employment law? More than you might think, especially if you have been the victim of a pervasively hostile work environment. A recent hostile work environment case from just to our north reinforces the rule that, in hostile work environment cases, the courts must consider the misconduct not as a series of separate events but rather as a single picture to be assessed holistically. Whether the harassment you endured was pervasive or was less frequent but more egregious, a knowledgeable New York City hostile work environment lawyer can help you get the relief you deserve.

The employee in the case, V.M., was a machine equipment operator in the highway department of a town in Rockland County. The operator’s decade-long time on the job was permeated with a wide array of acts of sex discrimination and harassment, according to her lawsuit. One supervisor allegedly barred her from using the women’s restroom in the administrative portion of the highway department office, thereby forcing her to change clothes in a closet infested with rats.

A non-supervisory male member of another crew allegedly tried to close V.M.’s fingers in doors and blocked her pathway in the parking lot. A foreman on a different road crew “bullied [V.M.] by making “disgusting noises” when she passed him and blocking doorways she tried to enter,” according to the complaint. That foreman also allegedly yelled at V.M. for refusing to drive a truck that she’d previously identified as needing maintenance work.

July 8, 2022

A Nanny’s Success in Court Demonstrates How a Change in the Law Can Help Workers Pursuing New York State Human Rights Law Claims

by Phillips & Associates

The law generally, but especially the law of discrimination, is continuing to evolve and change. One jurisdiction where that’s true is New York State. State law recently changed in an important way that helps workers harmed by discrimination on the job. The change lowers the standard of proof the worker must establish to have a viable discrimination claim. This illustrates the importance of having legal representation from a knowledgeable New York City employment discrimination lawyer who is fully up-to-date on the law and knows how to use those recent changes to your maximum benefit.

As an example of how the above-mentioned change in New York State represents a positive change for workers, there’s this recent color discrimination case.

The worker, C.C., was a nanny in Manhattan. The nanny’s lawsuit alleged that her employer (who was also the mother of the child for whom C.C. provided care) “consistently mocked” the color of her skin. That mockery included telling her older son that the nanny’s face was the same color as “poop” and subsequently encouraging the child to repeat the scatological observation, laughing and smiling when he did so, according to the complaint.

April 8, 2022

‘Nearly Constant’ Sexual Advances by a Supervisor — and Retaliation For Rejecting Those Advances — Were Enough to Support a New York Worker’s Sexual Harassment Case

by Phillips & Associates

In this day and age, you might think that people in supervisory roles in the workplace would understand that the team members who work for them are not their dating pool. Regrettably, if you thought that, you’d often be proven wrong, as court dockets have no shortage of cases where exactly that sort of misconduct allegedly occurred. People go to work to achieve goals, get paid, and maybe make the world a better place, not to be “hit upon” or propositioned. If you have endured that kind of workplace, don’t think you simply have to put up with it. Instead, get in touch with a knowledgeable New York City sexual harassment lawyer to discuss your options.

J.F., a woman in her 30s, allegedly was one of those workers who endured that sort of sexual harassment. It began in March 2019, when she took a job as a merchandise coordinator with an e-commerce entity in New York City. Allegedly, the sexual harassment began almost immediately.

During the woman’s first week on the job, her male supervisor asked her a string of problematic questions, which included things like “are you a lesbian?” and “do you have cats?” The supervisor explained his question by opining that he “figured at your age that if there weren’t kids or marriage that there must be a cat in the picture,” according to the complaint.

March 24, 2022

Misogynistic Slurs and Hostile Work Environments in New York

by Phillips & Associates

An old proverb says that a “little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” In few areas is that more true than the law. Some non-lawyers fancy themselves knowledgeable in the law. They may have taken a seminar discussing an area of the law, they may even engage with the law semi-regularly at work, but they may still not know the law. Sometimes, the impacts of that are benign. Other times, especially when it comes to employment law, the effects most definitely are not. If you’re someone who had this kind of experience and suffered workplace harm as a result of it, do not delay in getting in touch with an experienced New York employment discrimination lawyer.

One of the latest examples comes from a hostile work environment case from here in the city. The plaintiff, M.G., worked at an employment agency in Brooklyn. One day, a male coworker swore at a female coworker. That included calling her the “B-word.” The female coworker complained to management.

A week and a half later, during a meeting that included M.G., the male coworker, and the CEO, the CEO indicated that the female coworker would be terminated. The CEO also decided to conduct an impromptu legal seminar, telling M.G. that a coworker could call her that B-word and that such conduct “was not discrimination.”

February 7, 2022

‘Just Kidding’ is Not a Defense to Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

by Phillips & Associates

For about as long as workers have endured sexual harassment on the job, others have tried to rationalize that harassment away. Not every actionable instance of sexual harassment is as obvious or clear-cut as a 1990s Michael Douglas-Demi Moore motion picture. People may try to trivialize your victimization as mere “jokes.” They may try to dismiss it as not valid because the harasser wasn’t trying to get sexual favors from you. Don’t listen to them. Instead, get the knowledgeable advice you need from a skilled New York City sexual harassment lawyer.

Two of the more common excuses used to try to sweep away sexual harassment is that either (a) it wasn’t harassment because the harasser’s inappropriate comments were just ordinary workplace jokes or teasing, or (b) it wasn’t sexual given the genders and the sexual orientations of the harasser and the victim.

These excuses don’t fly according to the law, as a recent federal court ruling in a hostile work environment case again reminds us.

September 30, 2021

Just Because You ‘Smiled Your Way Through’ Harassment at Work, That Doesn’t Mean You Cannot Pursue a Hostile Work Environment Lawsuit

by Phillips & Associates

On the job, you may have experienced something that was blatantly inappropriate, unacceptable, and wrong, but you may not instantaneously have spoken out. Even if you didn’t, and even if others thought you were “OK” with it, that doesn’t make it OK and doesn’t mean that you cannot use that improper conduct as the foundation of a hostile work environment lawsuit. If it has happened to you at your workplace, reach out to a knowledgeable New York hostile work environment attorney to discuss your legal options.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where someone did or said something you found highly personally offensive? (We’re confident almost all readers are nodding “yes” right now.) Many of us may say or do nothing. “Unfriending” that guy you graduated high school with — the one who keeps posting memes mocking your ethnicity or your sexual orientation or your religion — would cost you little, but you fear the possible repercussions anyway. You somehow feel an innate urge not to “rock the boat.”

Now, imagine you were subjected to those offensive comments, not on Facebook, but at work. Repeatedly. You know the behavior is wrong and is hurtful to you. But you also know you need that job, and you fear the consequences if you speak out. Would you object, or would you gently smile and laugh (and hope it stops soon)? Whether you are the objecting kind or the laughing type, you may still potentially have experienced an actionable hostile work environment.

September 17, 2021

How You Can Present a Hostile Work Environment Case in New York if You Suffered Exactly One Incident of Sexual Harassment

by Phillips & Associates

Under federal law, you must prove that you suffered either “severe” or “pervasive” harassment to win a hostile work environment case. So, what happens if the harassment you endured was encapsulated in just one incident? Clearly, that’s not pervasive, but can it be severe? The answer is “yes, it can,” so don’t give up on your case just because you don’t have a long list of incidents of harassment. Instead, reach out to an experienced New York sexual harassment lawyer and find out what options exist for you.

The case of B.B., a clerical assistant with the New York Department of Sanitation, is a strong example of what a viable single-incident hostile work environment case looks like.

In 2014, the department reassigned B.B. to a garage in upper Manhattan. At the Manhattan garage, B.B. allegedly was the target of multiple sexually explicit comments about her body.