California Sexual Harassment Lawyer for Employees
If a supervisor, coworker, or customer is harassing you at work in California — and HR isn't stopping it, or you were punished for reporting it — this page is for you. Pletcher Law, APC, in Westlake Village, represents employees throughout Ventura County, Los Angeles County, Kern County and the rest of California, in the trial court and on appeal. I do not represent employers, and I never have.
Does this sound like your situation?
• A supervisor made comments about your body, your clothes, or your sex life — and keeps making them.
• Someone at work touched you, cornered you, or showed up where you were alone.
• You were offered a shift, a raise, or a promotion in exchange for “going along,” or threatened when you didn't.
• The harassment is happening online — a group chat, an Instagram account, texts after hours — and your employer says that isn't their problem.
• A customer, client, or vendor is harassing you and management shrugs it off as part of the job.
• You reported it, and now your hours are cut, your reviews turned bad, or you were let go.
• You work at a small company and were told the law doesn't apply because there are fewer than fifteen employees.
If one of these is you, the next step is a free 15-minute call. I'll tell you whether you have a case and what it would take to pursue it.
Book a free 15-minute case review or call/text (805) 630-3245
Free. Confidential. No attorney's fee unless we win. Your employer does not find out you called.
California law is stronger than federal law — and it comes first
Most websites explain sexual harassment through Title VII, the federal statute. That is the wrong place to start for a California worker. California's Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) is broader on every point that matters:
It applies to employers of any size. FEHA's harassment protections cover every employer with one or more employees (Gov. Code § 12940(j)(4)(A)). Title VII requires fifteen. If you work for a small business, a family-owned shop, or a solo professional, California law protects you.
It protects more than employees. FEHA's harassment provision covers applicants, unpaid interns, volunteers, and independent contractors — not just W-2 employees (§ 12940(j)(1)).
One incident can be enough. One incident can be enough. Since 2019, California law says a single incident of harassing conduct can be enough to take a hostile-work-environment case to a jury, if it unreasonably interfered with your work or created an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment (Gov. Code § 12923(b)). Harassment still has to be 'severe or pervasive' — but California measures that by whether the conduct made your job harder to do, not by how many months it went on, and the statute says these cases are rarely suited to being thrown out before trial.
The harasser does not have to want sex. The harasser does not have to want sex. FEHA prohibits harassment because of sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and pregnancy or related medical conditions — and sexually harassing conduct does not need to be motivated by sexual desire.
The deadline is three years, not 180 days. You have three years from the last act of harassment to file a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department (CRD), and one year after the CRD issues a right-to-sue notice to file in court. The federal EEOC deadline is 300 days in California — shorter, and almost never the one that matters for your case.
The two kinds of sexual harassment
Quid pro quo. Someone with power over your job — a supervisor, a manager, an owner — conditions a job benefit on sexual conduct, or threatens a job consequence for refusing. Your employer is strictly liable for your supervisor's quid pro quo harassment, whether or not it knew.
Hostile work environment. Unwelcome conduct based on sex that a reasonable person in your position would find hostile, intimidating, or abusive. Comments, images, texts, touching, “jokes,” propositions, rumors about your sex life. The court looks at the totality of the circumstances — and, it looks at them from the standpoint of a reasonable person - someone in your shoes, not from the standpoint of what the workplace has always tolerated.
Who is responsible
Your employer is strictly liable for harassment by a supervisor. Your employer is strictly liable for harassment by your supervisor. 'Your supervisor' means anyone with authority over your work — to direct you, discipline you, assign you, or effectively recommend those things — not only your direct boss. When that person harasses you in connection with the job, it does not matter whether the company knew. One limit, from a published decision issued October 5, 2026: a manager who supervises other people but has no authority over you is treated as a coworker for this purpose, and the negligence rule below applies instead (Doe v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (2026) B344642).
Your employer is liable for harassment by a coworker, a customer, a client, or a vendor if it knew or should have known about the conduct and failed to take immediate and appropriate corrective action. “We talked to him” is not corrective action if the harassment continued.
Your employer has an independent duty to prevent harassment — to take all reasonable steps to stop it before it happens. Employers with five or more employees must also provide harassment-prevention training (§ 12950.1). A company that never trained anyone, has no written policy, and has no one to report to has violated the law before the first comment is made.
The harasser is personally liable. Under FEHA, an individual harasser can be sued in their own name (§ 12940(j)(3)) — not just the company.
Harassment on social media counts
In 2024 I argued Okonowsky v. Garland, 109 F.4th 1166 (9th Cir. 2024) before the Ninth Circuit. My client was a psychologist at a federal prison. A coworker ran an Instagram page targeting her with sexually violent posts, and more than a hundred people, many of them her coworkers, followed it. The trial court threw the case out because the posts were made off-duty and off-site. The Ninth Circuit reversed: harassment that happens on social media, after hours, on a personal account, can create a hostile work environment at work — because that is where its effects are felt. If your harassment is happening in a group chat or on a coworker's account, that decision is why your employer cannot say it isn't their problem.
Small employers are not exempt — I've proven it on appeal
I argued the appeal in Elizabeth v. Palumbo (Cal. Ct. App. 2026, No. D086913), which affirmed a sexual-harassment judgment and attorney's fee award against a small employer. FEHA's harassment rules reach the smallest workplaces in California, and the fee-shifting provision means a small employer's size is not a reason a case cannot be brought. Every case turns on its own facts; prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
If you were punished for reporting it
Retaliation is a separate violation. If you complained about harassment — to a supervisor, to HR, to the CRD — and were then written up, demoted, cut back, or fired, you have a retaliation claim under § 12940(h) in addition to the harassment claim, and the retaliation claim is often the stronger of the two because the timing tells the story. See also: Wrongful Termination.
What to document now
1. Write down what happened, each time: date, time, place, exact words, who was present. A contemporaneous note is evidence; a memory a year later is not.
2. Save everything — texts, screenshots, DMs, emails, schedules before and after you complained. Save them somewhere your employer cannot reach.
3. Report it in writing. An email to HR or your manager is time-stamped proof of when the company knew. Keep a copy at home.
4. Keep your performance history. Reviews, commendations, and the absence of discipline before you complained are the backbone of a retaliation claim.
5. Do not sign anything — a severance, a release, an “investigation summary” — without having it read first.
How it works
1. Book the call or pick up the phone. Fifteen minutes, free, on your schedule. Nothing you tell me leaves this office.
2. I listen and give you a straight answer. Whether you have a case, what it's worth pursuing, and what the deadlines are. If I'm not the right lawyer, I'll tell you who is.
3. If we go forward, you pay no attorney's fee unless we win. Harassment cases are handled on contingency.
Don't wait on deadlines. Three years sounds like a long time. Witnesses leave, phones get replaced, and the company's version of events hardens every month. The safest move is to call while it is fresh.
Questions people ask before they call
Do you represent employers? No. Pletcher Law, APC represents employees only.
I work for a company with four employees. Does the law protect me? Yes. FEHA's harassment protections apply to employers with one or more employees.
The harassment is on Instagram and in a group chat, not at work. Does that count? It can. I argued the Ninth Circuit case that says so.
I never reported it to HR. Do I still have a case? Often, yes — especially if the harasser was a supervisor, where the employer is liable whether or not it knew though how and when you reported can affect what you recover, which is one more reason to call early. Reporting matters more when the harasser was a coworker, a customer, or a manager who had no authority over you. Either way, call before you decide anything.
It only happened once. Is that enough? It can be. California law says a single incident can be enough to get a hostile-work-environment case to a jury if it was serious enough to interfere with your work.
How much does this cost? The first call is free. If I take your case, it's on contingency — no attorney's fee unless we win.
Will my employer find out I called? No. The consultation is confidential and creates no record with your employer.
Where do you take cases? Based in Westlake Village. Ventura County and Los Angeles County primarily; anywhere in California for the right case.
Ready when you are
Book a free 15-minute case review or call/text (805) 630-3245
Pletcher Law, APC · Andrew S. Pletcher, State Bar No. 299437 · Westlake Village, California. Attorney advertising. The information on this page is general information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.