Secondhand or Secondary Sexual Harassment Claims

Let’s say that you are speaking to a friend that you work with, and he or she tells you that people at work are saying things about you. In fact, they’re doing more than just saying things. They’re talking about your sex life, your body, and other invasive and intrusive and offensive things about you at work. Perhaps it’s even been going on for some time.

Worse, imagine that a co-worker has a photo or video of you in a compromising, private situation, and is circulating that picture or photo around the workplace.

You had no idea that this was going on. If it ends up being true, is this sexual harassment?

Is it harassment?

It may, at first, seem like it’s not because you never saw the harassment, and it was never made known to you. But in fact, this kind of thing can be sexual harassment, sometimes called secondhand or secondary harassment.

You don’t actually have to ever know of the harassment, or experience it first hand. Nobody has to say anything directly to you, and you can learn about the harassment from other people; it still constitutes sexual harassment.

But You Didn’t See it Happen…

Employers or harassers will often say that they took special care to make sure that you didn’t know about what they were saying about you or doing. They may say they specifically did that so as not to offend you. But that makes no difference; the fact that sexual harassment is hidden or concealed, doesn’t alter the fact that harassment occurred and you have a claim.

In fact, in many ways, secondhand harassment may be just as bad if not worse than direct harassment, as the person being harassed never had the opportunity to report and/orstop the behavior, or to confront his or her harassers directly.

Did Your Employer Know?

This secondhand harassment may not have ever been known by you when it was happening, but it may have been known by your employer (in fact, your supervisors may have been the ones engaging in the insulting and demeaning words or actions).

Just Hearing Harassment is Harassment

Secondhand sexual harassment can work another way as well. Imagine that worker 1 and worker 2 are talking about worker 3 in a sexually explicit and demeaning manner. Even though worker 3 is the one being harassed, and may not have heard any of it, anybody who may hear worker 1 or worker 2 talking about worker 3, may also have a claim for hostile work environment sexual harassment.

All of this means that you don’t have to be the one being directly harassed, and if you are, you don’t even have to know it’s happening, to be a victim, and to have legal recourse to recover for harassment. The fact that the harassers are really good at hiding what they’re doing, isn’t a defense.

Were you harassed or demeaned while at work? Contact the San Jose employment and harassment law attorneys at the Costanzo Law Firm today for help.