Has Your Boss Been Harassing You?
New York and New Jersey Harassment Law Experts
New York and New Jersey law prohibit harassment based on your race, age, gender, pregnancy, mental or physical disability, religion, color, national origin, sexual orientation, or military/veteran status. Harassment is actionable when it creates a hostile work environment. Like discrimination, harassment is only unlawful if it is based on a legally protected category, such as your race, age, sex (gender), pregnancy, mental or physical disability, religion, color, national origin, sexual orientation, or military/veteran status.
To be legally actionable, harassment also has to be severe or pervasive. As a result, one extremely severe act of harassment, or a series of relatively minor actions, can create a hostile work environment, and therefore can be legally actionable harassment. However, a limited number of relatively minor acts might not be enough to give rise to a harassment claim.
Examples of actions which can be part of a hostile work environment can include physical touching and assaults, inappropriate or insulting comments and jokes, excessive yelling, screaming or swearing, less desirable job assignments, undeserved verbal or written reprimands, and other offensive or demeaning conduct that is motivated by your race, age, gender, pregnancy, mental or physical disability, religion, color, national origin, sexual orientation, or military status.
Sexual harassment is one of the most common types of unlawful harassment. Sexual harassment is actually just harassment due to your gender. For more information, please see our sexual harassment page.
