Sexual Harassment
Award-Winning Employment Litigation Legal Representation
New York City Sexual Harassment Lawyer
Sexual harassment is a form of gender discrimination that unfortunately permeates throughout countless workplaces in New York City today. Harassment in the workplace can undoubtedly come in many forms, which is why every victim and sexual harassment claim is going to require the assistance of an experienced sexual harassment attorney.
The Giordano Law Offices Personal Injury & Employment Lawyers are fully prepared to be the New York City sexual harassment lawyer for all victims of sexual harassment, and this includes protecting any person regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Although women are primarily the victims of a sexually hostile working environment, we are also experienced in supporting men and transgender individuals in NYC sexual harassment litigation.
Below we’ll be providing a comprehensive overview so you can better understand everything about your rights as an employee victim of workplace sexual harassment, and as always feel free to reach out to us online or call/text us directly at 646-217-0749 to get in touch with an NYC sexual harassment lawyer today.
Sexual harassment in New York City (in the employment context) is considered to be any kind of unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature that may be directed at an employee by or to which an employee is exposed in the workplace. Harassment in the workplace can occur regardless of gender, and this can include inappropriate touching, joking, sexual advances, the “male gaze,” overly personal comments, comments about appearance, personal questions, and all sorts of unique types of harassment that are sexualized, whether overt or subtle.
New York just so happens to have an anti-sexual harassment agenda that is actively trying to eradicate workplace misconduct of all types throughout the state, and New York is going a step further than most federal laws in that sexually harassing conduct doesn’t necessarily have to be “severe or pervasive” in nature.
Here in New York, employers/managers/supervisors are individually liable for their misconduct if they either created or condoned a hostile work environment or explicit sexual harassment.
What Is An Average Settlement For A Harassment Lawsuit In New York City ?
It’s important for victims of workplace sexual harassment to understand that their claim will be 100% unique as compared to all other similar cases, so this means that an average settlement amount for harassment lawsuits will ultimately vary from case to case. Damages can range from thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions.
Every sexual harassment claim will pertain to both employment and personal injury law, so it’s rather likely that the following damages will apply to you or your family member’s settlement amount:
- Lost income
- Pain and suffering
- Medical bills
- Emotional distress
- Mental anguish
- Loss of future earning capacity
- Loss of quality of life
- And much more…
Properly identifying and valuing your damages is a big reason why you’ll require the assistance of an experienced sexual harassment attorney, and our sexual harassment attorneys will always go above and beyond to ensure that your employer or co-worker is fully held accountable for their workplace conduct.
What are The Three Types Of Harassment?
There are three general forms of harassment that occur within the workplace, including physical, visual, and verbally harassing acts.
Physical Sexual Harassment
There’s no doubt that physical sexual harassment is by far the most well-known and obvious type of harassment in the workplace. This includes unwanted/unwelcome touching of any kind, which also includes physically interfering with a co-worker’s movements and preventing a co-worker from completing their daily duties.
Some common examples of physical sexual harassment would be an employee actually putting their arms around another employee, or blocking an employee’s exit from a specific room with their body.
All physically harassing acts contribute to a hostile work environment, and an NYC sexual harassment lawyer can help victims build their cases and hold these types of advances accountable.
Verbal Sexual Harassment
Disrespectful slurs or comments can be considered verbal harassment within the workplace, and this can include any kind of labeling or nicknames that permeate a person’s job. Any kind of offensive nicknames and comments that have a sexual connotation is undoubtedly bad for any working environment, and sexual harassment attorneys will have the experience to fully demonstrate how detrimental this type of conduct is to an individual’s psyche.
Verbal harassment can take many different forms, and in general, they include any conversations or interactions that make an employee feel uncomfortable at work. This includes flirtatious gestures or “romantic overtures” that insinuate how a predator wants to take their workplace relationship to a romantic level.
Visual Sexual Harassment
Visual sexual harassment can take the form of an individual exposing themselves to a co-worker, but it can also present itself in much more subtle forms. Visual harassment can include drawings of a co-worker in which their body is extenuated in an insulting manner.
Another more common form of visual harassment is an employee showing an offensive picture/video to a co-worker, including sexually oriented videos. Visual sexual harassment can also come in the form of workplace posters and lewd gestures. A common example of a lewd gesture would be a pelvic thrust towards a co-worker, even when the gesture doesn’t actually touch the victim
Sexual harassment can be subtle as well as overt.
What Is Sexual Harassment?
Sexual harassment has many different literal meanings, and as we all know an employee at any New York NY business can experience all sorts of gender discrimination that would constitute workplace sexual harassment.
According to New York employment law, there are also two distinct types of sexual harassment that all men and women should know about:
Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment
A quid pro quo type of workplace harassment occurs when victims of sexual harassment feel as though they must accept certain inappropriate behavior from an employer or supervisor in order to get a salary increase, promotion or simply to maintain their employment in exchange.
A quid pro quo technically entails a “this for that” type of agreement, which of course is not acceptable conduct oriented towards any employment decision. Of course, there are countless examples of these types of sexual advances, and these scenarios always validate the need for a sexual harassment lawyer.
Hostile Work Environment
As we mentioned above, a hostile work environment can take the form of physical, verbal, and visual sexual harassment. A workplace becomes hostile when co-workers, supervisors, and employers make an individual feel uncomfortable or threatened due to unsavory, derogatory, or lewd conduct.
Although there truly are limitless ways that a work environment can become hostile, it really comes down to whether certain individuals are inhibiting the work performance of a victim through advances, inappropriate behavior, offensive comments, or any type of behavior that would make a victim want to quit their job.
How Do I Recognize Sexual Harassment At Work?
It can sometimes be difficult to recognize sexual harassment in the workplace towards a co-worker or yourself, but it’s important to understand that literally any person at a business can be a victim of workplace misconduct. Any inappropriate comments or gestures that are offensive or intimidating can qualify as harassment oriented around a hostile workplace.
Some common examples of sexual harassment within a working environment include:
- Making indecent/obscene gestures
- Making unwelcomed advances on a repeated basis
- Showing a co-worker pornographic/offensive images
- Telling inappropriate jokes or using vulgar language
- Making comments about a person’s attractiveness (or lack thereof)
- Making inappropriate references towards a person’s or one’s own sexual attributes
- Unnecessarily touching a co-worker in a way that’s unwanted
- Touching oneself in front of a co-worker
- Making lewd gestures or continuously glaring at someone inappropriately
- And so much more….
At What Point Does It Become Harassment?
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, harassment within a New York City workplace becomes unlawful when:
- A person feels as though they must endure the gender discrimination behavior within the working environment in order to keep their job.
- The conduct is pervasive/severe enough to develop a working environment that any reasonable person would consider hostile, intimidating, or abusive.
What Kind Of Lawyer Do I Need For Sexual Harassment?
When you, a family member, or a friend have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace in New York City, it’s absolutely imperative to reach out to a law firm that specializes in both employment law and personal injury law.
Giordano Law Offices Personal Injury & Employment Lawyers is an employment law firm that also specializes in personal injury law, which makes us a perfect choice for your sexual harassment case. When your job and potentially your career are on the line, you are going to need an experienced New York City sexual harassment lawyer that understands all of the intricate details oriented around this portion of New York state law and federal laws.
Our NYC sexual harassment lawyers will help guide any employee victim through these complex gender discrimination legal proceedings, and we’ll ultimately put your sexual harassment claims in the best position to help you obtain your rightful compensation and hold the unwarranted workplace harassment accountable.
Can Sexual Harassment Happen Online In New York City?
Sexual harassment within the workplace no longer must require face-to-face interactions, and remote working has made online harassment much more prevalent.
There’s absolutely no doubt that online sexual harassment can be very real and can inflict serious emotional distress on victims. Online harassment can come in the exact same forms as in-person harassment, but it can also include online stalking and sexual advances.
There are four general types of online sexual harassment that commonly occur in workplaces throughout New York City, including:
- Non-consensual sharing of inappropriate/intimate images
- Coercion, exploitation, and threats
- Sexual bullying
- Unwanted sexualized behavior/conversations, as well as general online content
What IS The Process To File A Sexual Harassment At Work Claim In New York City?
If you feel as though you’ve experienced sexual harassment in your New York City workplace, then there are a few important steps that you can take to protect your rights and ensure a successful outcome given that you want to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the New York State Division of Human Rights or the New York City Commission on Human Rights.
Although you’re undoubtedly going to need to hire sexual harassment lawyers to assist you throughout this complex legal proceeding, the following steps are important when it comes to proving that you in fact are a victim of workplace sexual harassment:
Document The Harassment As Much As You Can
Sometimes this simply means writing down the details of each incident that you experience within a logbook, which would include the time/date of each inappropriate encounter. This type of record-keeping would also need to include any witnesses that were present during the harassment encounter.
Although logbooks are great, you could potentially even attempt to plant a small video camera within your workplace given the scenario. However, this of course is very risky, which is why a written logbook is sometimes a more accountable way of preserving these memories.
Some important details to include in your logbook include the following:
Specific details of the encounter (including images/photos), or what was said. This can include the inappropriate comments/jokes or other inappropriate behavior that occurred.
- Copies of voicemails, emails, and other relevant forms of communication.
- Names/titles of the individuals involved with the inappropriate conduct, including the actual harasser and any other witnesses.
- Time/date/location of each encounter.
- Details oriented about how you reacted to these situations, including information about confronting the harasser or letting others know what has been happening.
Tell Your Harasser That Their Behavior Is Unwelcome
Although it’s safe to say that no one these days should have to be told that sexual harassment is inappropriate, this type of workplace behavior still happens all the time throughout New York City. Unless you feel too uncomfortable doing so, you should confront your harasser and tell them how they’ve conducted harassing behavior.
If this stops the harassment from occurring, then you may not necessarily need to conduct further legal action. However, when the harassment does continue after this crucial step, you will need to speak with HR at your company and also contact an NYC sexual harassment lawyer to assist you in filing a claim with the EEOC, the State of New York City agencies that handle such matters.
Getting Legal Counsel From A Sexual Harassment Attorney
An experienced sexual harassment lawyer will be able to thoroughly review your unique situation and determine your best course for legal action. A gender discrimination specialist that has experience with work environment misconduct will support you in collecting a substantial amount of evidence to bolster your claim, and they’ll also support you in officially filling your claim and all of the necessary paperwork through the EEOC.
Having legal representation will put you in a much better position to protect yourself from all sorts of employer retaliation, and it will also exponentially support your efforts towards obtaining your rightful compensation to accommodate your subsequent damages.
What Happens If Your Employer Ignores Your Sexual Harassment Complaint?
The right thing to do when sexual harassment occurs within the workplace is to report the harassment to your company’s HR department or confront the harasser directly and let them know that their behavior is unwanted and offensive.
What’s particularly alarming about harassment in the workplace in New York City is that countless companies will do absolutely nothing about these types of complaints, and will even ignore them completely in order to save face and assume that things will work themselves out on their own.
Outright denials and dismissive attitudes are unfortunately very common throughout all of New York City in these scenarios, and it can leave victims feeling as though their sexual harassment claim and even their job are in jeopardy. The following is a list of steps that you can take when your employer decides to ignore your sexual harassment claim:
- Be patient and diligent
- Make it absolutely clear that any past sexual advances were unwarranted
- Go through the proper channels (HR rules & your sexual harassment lawyer)
- Continue to keep records of each harassment encounter
- Work with experienced employment litigation lawyers and rely on their expertise
Contact New York City Sexual Harassment Lawyer Carmen Jack Giordano Today
The Giordano Law Firm was founded by Attorney Jack Giordano. Mr. Jack Giordano is the managing partner and principal at the Giordano Law Firm.