Nov 5 2025
Amanda DeMatteis: Hi, Josh.
Josh Goodbaum: Hi, Amanda. What are we talking about today?
DeMatteis: I thought we would talk about sexual harassment, but in a little bit of a different context than we have in the past.
Let me give you a hypothetical: You have a potential client that comes to see you, and they say, “I have been a victim of sexual harassment at work. I complained about it. There was an investigation. Something must have happened to my sexual harasser, but I really don’t know. All I do know is they’re continuing to be employed by our same employer, and, in fact, I need to work with them. I need to interact with them on a daily basis, and it makes me really uncomfortable.” As far as we know, the employer hasn’t taken any concrete negative action toward your client who experienced sexual harassment: their job remains the same; their pay remains the same; their title remains the same. What can we do to help this person?
Goodbaum: This is a really tricky situation, Amanda, and it doesn’t have easy answers. Any time you’re talking about sexual harassment between two employees, or among a group of employees, there are a lot of emotions involved, and there are often no easy answers.
The employer’s obligation when it receives a complaint of sexual harassment, or any type of harassment, is to take reasonable measures to prevent the harassment from continuing – that is, it has to remedy the situation. That often means that the employer is going to terminate the employment of the harasser if they have confirmed the harassment did occur. But that’s not their legal obligation. Their legal obligation, again, is to take reasonable measures to prevent the harassment from continuing. So, if the employer has done that, if they have made the harassment stop, they’ve done their job in a lot of ways.
That doesn’t mean that you’re going to feel like nothing has happened if you were sexually harassed. It doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to compensation even. You may well be entitled to compensation for the sexual harassment, and that’s something you can explore with an employment lawyer. But it does mean, in this moment, that the employer is probably doing what they are required to do according to employment law.
If the employer has not prevented the sexual harassment, if the harassment is continuing, or if you continue to feel uncomfortable because of something that your coworker is doing or something your management is doing, then it’s definitely time to talk with an employment lawyer because maybe a lawyer can help fix some of what’s making you uncomfortable.
After you’ve made that complaint of sexual harassment, whether there’s been an investigation or not, you want to be really attentive to whether you experience any different treatment from your employer. Were your reviews great before, and now they’re middling? Were you getting a big bonus before, and now you’re not getting a big bonus? Do you feel like you were on the path of upward mobility in the org chart before, and now you feel like you’re stagnating or you’re not rising as quickly as you used to be? Those are things you want to look at because, in addition to having a complaint about the harassment that you experienced, you might also potentially have a claim for retaliation based on the complaint that you made about that harassment. All of these are things you might want to discuss with an employment lawyer.
In general, I would say, if you feel that you’re experiencing sexual harassment at work, yes, you’re empowered to make that complaint on your own. But the complaint might be more powerful with your own lawyer in your corner supporting that complaint.
So, those are a few ideas about how to proceed once you have made a complaint of sexual harassment to your employer.
DeMatteis: That’s great advice, Josh. Remember, also, that employment law is not one size fits all. These things are really, really fact-specific. So, it might be useful for you to talk to an employment lawyer about exactly what you’ve experienced, how you’ve complained at work, and what your employer’s response has been to it to make sure that you’re doing all that you can to be safe at work, which is really what counts.
Thank you so much for watching, and we’ll see you next time. Take care.
