Losing your career over Harassment

[Earths0ng]

I have lost my career, because a Supervisors fear that I would pursue action against another Supervisor. You could call it Sexual Harassment but I'm a big girl and it wasn't affecting my job performance or adding additional stress to my day. It was just a letter writing campaign to get me alone with him. I didn't comply and it was no problem. Another employee got wind of what he was doing and went to another Superviser, and told her what she thought was going on. Then at that point the department heads got involved and called in the Superviser that was doing the harassing. I was never involved in any of their meetings, no one ever asked me what was going on. Rules were changed, I was accused of sexual harassment but no one would tell me about it, my days turned into torture and eventualy I walked out. This man had been accused of harassment already and apparently they didn't need more problems. I'm in the process of finding out what to do about all of this. Any advice? Thanks for taking the time.
Kim

 

[Attorney_Replogle]

Kim, it sounds like you may have a claim for "constructive termination". That is a legal fiction that recognizes even though the employee voluntarily quit, the court will actually consider it an unlawful termination. The reason it would be unlawful in your case is the employer through its supervisor created or allowed an unwelcome sexually harassing environment. Second, the employer had every reason to believe that their supervisor was at fault because of his past behavior, and that it was not your fault. Yet they took action against you. Third, the employer's actions to make your life at work unbearable such that you eventually quit, this can be seen as unlawful retaliation for reporting an unlawful act (the harassment). Though per your account you did not report it (a friend of yours did) the employer may have treated you as though you did report it (either by requesting the friend to make the report or by your tacit agreement with the friend's actions). Thus, you should immediately contact a labor law attorney near you. You can find one by going to attorneypages.com. Does this help?

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Mark B. Replogle