Los Angeles Racial Harassment Lawyers

More than 50 Combined Years of Experience Protecting Workers’ Rights

Your workplace must be a safe environment. Fearing for your emotional safety due to another’s harassment based on your identity is illegal. Contact a Los Angeles racial harassment attorney at Feldman Browne, APC to schedule a free consultation about what to do next. Our attorneys have been recognized for their excellence in representation, and we know how to aggressively represent the rights and interests of our clients.

Call (310) 984-1415 now to get started. You can also contact Feldman Browne, APC online for a free consultation.

What Is Racial Harassment?

General harassment includes things like yelling, screaming, demeaning language, or demanding an unfair workload. If it is based merely on personality conflict, it is not illegal. However, when a harasser is motivated by prejudice because of one’s race, sex, age, disability, national origin, sexual orientation, or age, it becomes illegal.

In order to prove that your workplace is hostile toward your race, you must be able to prove that others of different races were treated more favorably. Racial motive may also be inferred from discriminatory remarks, stereotypes, racial joking, or slurs.

When Is Racial Harassment Illegal?

Isolated, infrequent, trivial, or merely offensive comments would usually not hold up as proof of illegal racial harassment. Only when it is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create a hostile or abusive work environment does the harassment become illegal, though if the comments are severe enough, they need not be as frequent. Also, if the discriminatory remarks are combined with frequent, general harassment, like yelling, screaming, or use of a demeaning or disrespectful tone, the combination may be sufficient to violate the law.

What to Do to Build a Strong Case

Since the conduct must be “unwelcome” to violate the law, a case is usually strongest where the employee has told the harasser to stop and has also reported the conduct. Reporting the conduct is particularly important where the harasser is a co-worker rather than a supervisor. If the harassment is perpetrated by a mere co-worker, you will usually need to show that a supervisory employee knew or should have known of the problem, but failed to take action to correct it.

If the harasser is a supervisor, the employer will be liable for his conduct whether it knew about it or not. However, an employer that was unaware of supervisory harassment and had promulgated and enforced effective anti-harassment policies will likely avoid liability for punitive damages, provided that it takes immediate and effective remedial action once it learns of the situation.

Schedule your free consultation now. Call (310) 984-1415 to get started.