Business Contract/Sexual Harrasment

[lindabonila]

What is the name of your state TEXAS

I am an independant contractor for a personal injury lawyer. He has been completely inapproproriate with me and he sends these types of things in text message to me. He gets drunk and texts me horrible things about his wife and gets very 'concerned' when I avoid meeting him for dinners etc because he thinks I will upset my husband.

Again he says all of these things in text. He even started talking about his sex life and sent pictures of his wife asleep and telling me he needs entertainment.

The contract we have says that all of our texts and communications must remain confidential.

I KNOW that if I tell him to back off -- he will fire me. He has a 30 day out clause. If I tell his wife -- I may be breaking the confidentiality agreement of the contract.

He even asked me via text the other day if I would ever use these texts against him because he may run for office.

Since I am just an independent contractor -- do I have any sex harrasment rights? I know I'm about to lose his 5k a month because I find him disgusting and I'm about to tell him so...

THanks in advance.

 

[LdiJ]

What is the name of your state TEXAS

I am an independant contractor for a personal injury lawyer. He has been completely inapproproriate with me and he sends these types of things in text message to me. He gets drunk and texts me horrible things about his wife and gets very 'concerned' when I avoid meeting him for dinners etc because he thinks I will upset my husband.

Again he says all of these things in text. He even started talking about his sex life and sent pictures of his wife asleep and telling me he needs entertainment.

The contract we have says that all of our texts and communications must remain confidential.

I KNOW that if I tell him to back off -- he will fire me. He has a 30 day out clause. If I tell his wife -- I may be breaking the confidentiality agreement of the contract.

He even asked me via text the other day if I would ever use these texts against him because he may run for office.

Since I am just an independent contractor -- do I have any sex harrasment rights? I know I'm about to lose his 5k a month because I find him disgusting and I'm about to tell him so...

THanks in advance.

What duties do you perform? He may also be misclassifying you as a contractor when he should be treating you as an employee. Tell us something about your job.

 

[lindabonila]

I am his media/PR person. I work outside of the office and I arrange media interviews for him.

However he texts me over 75 times a day .,.these days. He asks personal questions about my life and talks negatively about his wife.

I could really cook him if I could expose his texts.

 

[adjusterjack]

I am his media/PR person. I work outside of the office and I arrange media interviews for him.

Do you do this for only him or are you in business as a media/PR person doing this for others as well?

 

[lindabonila]

I have one other client.

 

[lindabonila]

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 

[adjusterjack]

I have one other client.

Then it would appear that you may be an independent contractor.

You might want to look into that a bit further just in case. The IRS website has the criteria to determine if you are or aren't.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/independent-contractor-defined

If you are an independent contractor you are not protected by labor laws if you are not an employee.

So, you either suck it up and ignore what he's saying, face him down and object to it, or quit (hopefully your contract allows you to terminate without cause).

 

[lindabonila]

So exposing him or threatening to expose him would be illegal, correct? I can't do anything?

Gosh It sucks because he is such a pig.

 

[LdiJ]

So exposing him or threatening to expose him would be illegal, correct? I can't do anything?

Gosh It sucks because he is such a pig.

Maybe, Maybe not. If you threaten to expose him if he doesn't give you money that is DEFINITELY illegal. If you threaten to expose him if he doesn't stop the sexual harassment then that is not necessarily illegal. However, depending upon overall circumstances there could be other dangers in making threats. This is one of those situations where you really need to be talking to someone local.

 

[latigo]

Maybe, Maybe not. If you threaten to expose him if he doesn't give you money that is DEFINITELY illegal. If you threaten to expose him if he doesn't stop the sexual harassment then that is not necessarily illegal. However, depending upon overall circumstances there could be other dangers in making threats. This is one of those situations where you really need to be talking to someone local.

Perhaps you could help me as I'm having some difficulty working through your hedging and equivocation.

If as you have pronounced it would DEFINITELY be ILLEGAL were he to refuse to give the OP money under threats of exposure of sexual harassment, why wouldn't such threats be LEGAL if he were to give her money to avoid her carrying them out? And if not, why not? When is it "not necessarily so" and when is it "necessarily so"?

Then explain your logic in labeling threats of exposure as legal or illegal depending on their effectiveness as in:

If you threaten to expose him if he doesn't stop the sexual harassment then that is not necessarily illegal. [sic]

 

[LdiJ]

Perhaps you could help me as I'm having some difficulty working through your hedging and equivocation.

If as you have pronounced it would DEFINITELY be ILLEGAL were he to refuse to give the OP money under threats of exposure of sexual harassment, why wouldn't such threats be LEGAL if he were to give her money to avoid her carrying them out? And if not, why not? When is it "not necessarily so" and when is it "necessarily so"?

Then explain your logic in labeling threats of exposure as legal or illegal depending on their effectiveness as in:

You should re-read what I wrote. I said it would be illegal for the OP to demand money in exchange for not reporting the harasser. That would be classic blackmail, which of course you should know. Heck, I am going to take it further and state that you should absolutely know that and the fact that you played around with what I wrote was simply your standard form of harassment on these forums.

 

[adjusterjack]

Texas does not have an extortion statute. Instead, it includes extortion in its Consolidation of Theft Offenses:

Sec. 31.02. CONSOLIDATION OF THEFT OFFENSES. Theft as defined in Section 31.03 constitutes a single offense superseding the separate offenses previously known as theft, theft by false pretext, conversion by a bailee, theft from the person, shoplifting, acquisition of property by threat, swindling, swindling by worthless check, embezzlement, extortion, receiving or concealing embezzled property, and receiving or concealing stolen property.

http://law.justia.com/codes/texas/2015/penal-code/title-7/chapter-31/

I have learned the following from reading the Texas Theft Code:

1 - If you obtain (or attempt to obtain) property or money from a person by threatening exposure of his foul language then you have committed a crime.

2 - If you threaten to expose his foul language if he doesn't stop the behavior then you have not committed a crime.

 

[Dandy Don]

I don't know what the language of your confidentiality agreement is with him, but I would speculate that the agreement would only apply to job related aspects of his performance or your performance and most likely would not apply to sexual harassment allegations which would be more categorized as being of a personal nature that the confidentiality agreement probably does not apply to. Just because it says that texts must remain confidential would probably be interpreted as any texts that you would receive on behalf of the business--any personal texts that he sent to you would not be protected, especially if they are inappropriate/offensive.

What does your contract say about termination of employment or firing or severance pay? Would you consider or could you afford to hire the services of an employment law attorney to negotiate a severance payout for you?

You have the option of filing a complaint with the State Bar of Texas but if they are a good-ole-boy group that rarely sanctions or hardly ever punishes attorneys for misconduct, then this may not be a satisfying route for you to go.

Are there any witnesses to the inappropriate verbal comments, if any, he has made?

Are you strong enough to leave this situation and what are your prospects for finding other clients who could offer you a similar rate of pay or what are your prospects if you decided to pursue other employment, even if it paid less?

Check your county courthouse civil/criminal case records online to see if this attorney has a record of any cases filed against him and also check the State Bar of Texas website to see if anyone else has filed complaints against him in the past.