Class 10 Legal Environment of Work: Employer Liability for Harassment & Bullying at Work

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering legal standards of hostile work environments, employer liability for harassment, the reasonable care defense, common law bullying claims (IIED), and the Healthy Workplace Bill.

Hostile Work Environment

A workplace characterized by harassing words or deeds based on an employee's protected class that meets legal thresholds of frequency, severity, impact, and interference with work.

Protected Class Requirement

The legal threshold specifying that harassing conduct creates an actionable hostile work environment only if the treatment is based on and occurs because of the employee's membership in a protected class.

Four Factors of a Hostile Environment

The core criteria used to assess whether harassing behavior creates a hostile work environment: frequency, severity, impact on the employee, and interference with work.

Supervisory Harassment Liability

A standard under state law where an employer faces liability—and the supervisor faces individual liability—if a supervisor engages in harassing behavior that rises to the level of a hostile work environment.

Coworker and Customer Harassment Standard

A legal standard where an employer is liable for harassment by non-supervisors only if management observes or is notified of the conduct and fails to take prompt and remedial action.

Wilcox v. Corrections Corp. of America (CCA)

A case where an initial jury award of $\$104,000$ was overturned on appeal because the employer took prompt remedial action, issued a stay-away instruction, investigated, and discharged the harasser within $6$ weeks.

Reasonable Care Defense

An affirmative defense that shields an employer from liability if it exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct harassment (via policies, training, and complaint procedures) and the employee unreasonably failed to report the conduct.

Intermediate Measures

Temporary steps taken by an employer prior to completing an investigation—such as stay-away orders, scheduling modifications, or paid non-disciplinary leave—to ensure harassment immediately halts.

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED)

A state tort claim requiring workplace conduct to be so extreme, outrageous, and intolerable that an average member of the community would exclaim 'outrageous!' based on the totality of circumstances.

Transient and Trivial Emotional Distress

Minor harm stemming from mere insults, indignities, or annoyances that a reasonable person is expected to endure, which cannot support a legal claim for IIED.

Abusive Work Environment

A workplace defined under the proposed Healthy Workplace Bill where an employee is subjected to abusive conduct so severe that it causes tangible harm and is carried out with malice.

Malice (Healthy Workplace Bill)

The legal intent defined under the Healthy Workplace Bill as a desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another individual.

Workplace Civility Training

A SHRM-recommended program aimed at promoting mutual respect among coworkers across diverse backgrounds and varying organizational tiers.

Bystander Intervention Training

A training approach recommended by SHRM that empowers employees to actively step in and intervene when witnessing bullying or harassment in the workplace.