What Constitutes a Hostile Work Environment in California?
Nobody in California needs to tolerate unwelcome verbal conduct or physical contact in the workplace. California's hostile work environment laws are not state laws, they are federal laws based on Title VII of the Civil Rights act of 1964. California labor law mirrors the Federal statues.
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Protected Classes
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You are protected from a hostile work environment created because of your race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or sexual orientation. Age discrimination is prohibited if you are over 40 years old. Sex harassment applies to both same sex and opposite sex harassment and can apply even if the behavior is not intended to be of a sexual nature. In some cases, retaliatory behavior is considered a prohibited behavior class.
Types of Behavior
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Discriminatory behavior against a protected class must either be so pervasive or severe as to affect the overall work environment or must result in a tangible change in an individual's employment status. Tangible changes include being fired, demoted or passed over for promotion based on one of the protected classes. Specific actions that could be considered creating a hostile work environment include leering, making offensive remarks about looks, clothing, or body parts, inappropriate touching, off-color jokes, sexual posters, or sexual gestures, or sending of sexually suggestive emails, memos, or images. Other behaviors that can lead to a hostile work environment include use of racial or ethnic terms that are derogatory, disparaging comments about a person's sex that are not sexual in nature, disparaging comments about a person's religious beliefs, age or impairment.
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Documentation
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To prove a hostile work environment, a person must document the acts, the dates they occurred and the times. This documentation will help to establish whether the behavior was pervasive enough to qualify as an overall hostile work environment.
How to Claim Harassment
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To make a claim of hostile work environment, you must be a member of one of the protected classes. You will need to have the behavior documented, and will have to be able to show that the behavior was pervasive or severe. You also have to show that the behavior adversely affected your employment.
What is Not a Hostile Work Environment
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Rude behavior does not always legally qualify as a hostile work environment. Simple teasing, single off-hand comments, or things that happen once and do not happen again are not considered a hostile work environment. If the behavior is not pervasive and does not result in adverse employment action, it may not be considered a hostile work environment.
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References
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