When Harassment Happens - Our New Jersey Employment Lawyers Can Help
Are you being subjected to a hostile work environment based upon your sex, disability, sexual orientation, race, national origin or other protected trait? Have you complained to your employer about the harassment, but your employer has not done anything to address it or stop it? If so, your rights may have been violated.
The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination Protects Employees from a Hostile Work Environment
An employer who has knowledge or should have knowledge of the existence of a hostile work environment is obligated to remediate and stop the harassment. The harassment must be based upon a protected trait such as sex, sexual orientation, disability, race or national origin. When an employer fails to take effective measures to stop the illegal harassment that it knows or should know of, New Jersey law considers that the employer has joined the harasser in making the working environment hostile and sending the harassed employee the message that the harassment is acceptable. In enacting the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination our legislature intended to eradicate the cancer of discrimination for workplaces in New Jersey.
In order to establish a claim based upon a hostile work environment under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, a Plaintiff must establish that the complained-of conduct
1. would not have occurred but for the employee's protected trait
2. it was severe or pervasive enough to make
3. a reasonable person of the same protected trait believes that
4. the conditions of employment have been altered and the working environment is hostile or abusive.
If you believe you may have been or are currently being subjected to a hostile work environment, feel free to give us a call to discuss the specific facts of your workplace situation.
