Sexual harassment must be unwanted

When a California employee faces sexual harassment on the job, it can destroy the employee’s ability to be productive and get his or her job done. It’s a torturous condition for the victim to be in. He or she merely wants to go to work and do as well as he or she can, but the employee also has to deal with sexually charged feelings, aggressive behavior and interpersonal stresses that serve absolutely no practical purpose on the job.

Victims of sexual harassment can tell their harassers to stop the behavior. They can complain to superiors to speak with the harasser and take disciplinary action. They can also complain to the human resources department. However, there are numerous cases when a victim’s complaints are ignored and a company does nothing to stop the abuse.

It’s in these situations that litigation is necessary. With the aid of an experienced sexual harassment lawyer, victims can file a lawsuit in court over the sexual harassment to pursue financial damages relating to the psychological turmoil they have endured, in addition to lost income, lost opportunity and other damages.

However, it may not be entirely straightforward and easy to prove that the sexual harassment occurred. Often sexual harassers will try to argue that they were merely joking around, or that the “sexual harassment” consensual, even encouraged. Since — in order to prevail in a sexual harassment claim — the victim must prove that it was unwanted, these kinds of arguments could be damaging to the victim’s attempts to seek justice.

This is why having documentation of the sexual harassment behavior, in addition to the victim’s attempts to make it stop, is so important. Your sexual harassment lawyer will, therefore, want you to keep a record of text messages and emails that include sexual harassment and in which you asked for the behavior to stop, notes describing the sexually harassing behavior and when it occurred and any other evidence that will help you prove your claims.