Harassment.

Who leads this work — Arthur Karadzhyan: employment litigation from both sides of the table — plaintiff-side wage-and-hour class actions and defense practice at a national employment firm. That vantage is the method: knowing how the other side reads a file before they read it.

The law here changed in 2018, decisively, in workers’ favor. A single incident can be enough; “stray remarks” count; and the Legislature told courts to stop resolving these cases before juries see them.

1 · What the law says

FEHA forbids harassment based on a protected characteristic — a claim about conduct and environment rather than personnel decisions, with rules that reach further than discrimination’s: employers of any size are covered, and so are contractors and interns, not only employees.[Gov. Code §12940(j)] The standard is severe or pervasive, and Government Code section 12923 — the Legislature’s 2018 correction to decades of defense-friendly drift — declares what that disjunctive means: a single incident may suffice; the environment need not be abusive by tally; remarks are weighed in totality rather than filtered as “stray”; no workplace is exempt as a rough shop; and summary judgment is rarely the right way to decide these cases. The Supreme Court took the logic to its sharpest point in Bailey (2024): one use of an unambiguous racial slur, by a coworker, may be actionable by itself.

Liability runs in three lanes: the employer is strictly liable for supervisors; liable for coworkers and even non-employees where it knew or should have known and failed to act; and the harasser is personally liable, whoever they are. Alongside runs the employer’s independent duty to prevent harassment — a separate count with its own story.[§12940(k)]

2 · How these cases actually unfold

From the report outward. The dated complaint — or the reasons one never felt safe to make — anchors the timeline; what the employer did next decides the negligence lane; and what happened to you next usually births a retaliation claim that travels with the case. The evidence is contemporaneous: messages, witnesses, your own records made at the time. Damages center on emotional distress, which means the defense will seek your mental-health history; managing that discovery — scope, protective orders, the statutory shields for sexual-conduct evidence — is part of the representation, not an afterthought.[Evid. Code §1106] Expect the employer to argue its investigation as a defense. Investigations that consisted of asking the harasser whether he did it tend not to survive their own transcripts.

3 · Issues to examine

The failure-to-prevent count. A standalone negligence story — no training, ignored complaints, a serial harasser passed from team to team — with its own proof and its own jury appeal. Routinely folded into the main claim; it deserves its own.

The individual defendant. Naming the harasser personally is not vindictiveness; it is architecture. It changes settlement dynamics, sharpens witness candor — and, where the harasser is a Californian, it can defeat removal to federal court, keeping the case in the forum section 12923 governs.

The old paperwork. Clients arrive believing a past NDA or settlement gag forbids them from describing what happened. California has narrowed what such clauses may silence about unlawful workplace acts. Bring the old agreement; its limits may be narrower than it reads.

The resignation clock. Environments that force people out create constructive-discharge claims — timing-sensitive ones. The advice, always: talk to a lawyer before resigning, not after.

4 · Our approach

We plead all three lanes and the prevention count, and we name individual defendants when the facts warrant it. We prepare clients for the discovery these cases bring — protectively, and honestly — because a client who knows what is coming testifies like it. And we litigate section 12923 as what it is: not an argument but the governing law, quoted early and often, until opposing briefs written for 2015 stop working.

What to bring to a first conversation

Your written report, if any, and every response to it. The messages — texts, chats, emails — as they exist on your own devices and accounts. A dated list of incidents: words used, who was present. The names of others who experienced or saw it. Any old agreement you believe silences you.

Selected authorities

Gov. Code §§12923, 12940(j), (k), 12964.5 · Evid. Code §1106 · Bailey v. San Francisco District Attorney’s Office (2024) · Reid v. Google, Inc. (2010) 50 Cal.4th 512 · Richards v. CH2M Hill, Inc. (2001) 26 Cal.4th 798 · Turner v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1238

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Page states California law as of its revision date.

This article states California law as of its revision date and is analysis, not legal advice. Reading this site does not create an attorney-client relationship. Attorney advertising.