Question: What type of penalties for harassment are in place under the law?
Answer: Before 1930, employees did
not have much protection from their employers. In 1930, though, Congress
decided to offer some protection by passing laws to protect employees
a little bit, and created the following laws: minimum wage law; social
security laws; and extra hours laws.
Nevertheless, before 1965 there weren't
any laws protecting employees from harassment at the work place. Harassment
can occur in several ways: when a person is made to feel uncomfortable,
or is in some way discriminated, on the basis of their race, national
origin, color of their skin, gender [their sex], religion, age, or disability.
In 1965, Title 7 was passed - which is the law that provides the most
protection for harassment and discrimination in our society. Other laws
relating to disabilities did not become effective later [the Americans
with Disabilities Act did not become effective until 1990].
When an employee is 'harassed' or in some
way discriminated against by another person at work, there are a few different
claims that can be made against the 'harasser' at the state level. All
of these claims can include money damages [that is, the person suing gets
money for having been harassed] or an action can be ordered [that is,
that the person harassing the plaintiff must be fired, or if the harassment
resulted in the plaintiff getting fired, rehiring the plaintiff].
Some examples of typical 'harassment' type
claims are:
1) Tort Claims: this claim has a plaintiff complaining
of being 'wronged', and is the type of lawsuit most Americans are familiar
with.
2) Defamation: the plaintiff here complains of their
'name' being ruined.
3) Emotional Distress: the plaintiff here complains
that they were emotionally disturbed by the harrassment
4) Fraud: this is a claim where the plaintiff argues
that they were somehow deceived on a serious point.
5) Public Policy [44 states still have this claim,
which basically is a claim that means the action involved is bad in
general, and needs to be brought so that it doesn't happen again
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| Comments |
| 6 thru 9 of 9 comments |
On 03/13/04
Ruth from AZ said:
I have been employed by a company for five years. The administration has changed since then.The new administration has tryed everything in her power to get me fired. She has painted this picture to her superiors that I am incompetent of doing my job duties, she gave deceitful information to give me a write up, she held back information to give me a bad review, she is a fabricator. I've taken the proper chain of action in the company.I haven't received a reasonable response from anyone.Now I a suffering from headaches and chest pain.What can I do?
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On 12/20/03
marcus from WA said:
I am a 41 year old male 6,2 290 I have been working as a auto mechanic for 20 years and started working at a shop I have about 3 mounth in at this shop I would like to no if being called fat and being made fun of by the owner of the shop in front of fellow employees and also being told I can not do some kinds of repairs and will have to let other employees do them because of my size repairs that I have been doing for 20 years. IS this considerd harassment
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On 06/30/03
Rhonda from CA said:
If a cook at the work place of my daughter is barking at her and not stopping when asked, does she have any way to make him stop.
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On 11/25/01
joshua from AZ said:
i would like to know if in a case of defamation can any of the parties (defendant or accused ) force a lie detector test to aid them ?
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| 6 thru 9 of 9 comments |
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