Accrued Sick Leave Pay is Available to Employees for Family Leave to Attend to the Illness of a Child, Parent, Spouse or Domestic Partner
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The California Supreme Court confirmed that Labor Code Section 233, commonly referred to as the “kin care” statute is designed to allow employees who have accrued sick leave to receive payment for time off to take care of the illness of a child, parent, spouse or domestic partner. Family leave is available to employees to take time off to care for a close relative, but family leave does not provide for payment for that time off. Labor Code Section 233 does provide for payment from an employee’s accrued sick leave entitlements. The case involved a collective bargaining agreement with an employer, Pacific Telesis Group, and was published by the California Supreme Court on February 18, 2010. The Supreme Court resolved whether Labor Code Section 233, which permits an employee to use accrued sick leave to take care of ill relatives, applies to paid sick leave policies that provide for an uncapped number of compensated days off. As an exception to the general rule, the California Supreme Court decided that employers who provide for an uncapped number of compensated days off for sick leave are not obligated to pay for “kin care”.
Hostile Work Environment Harassment
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Hostile work environment harassment requires, under the law, a link between the hostility by a coworker or supervisor that is based on a protected characteristic, such as gender, disability, race, or creed. Just because a boss is mean does not necessarily constitute a legal claim for hostile work environment. On the other hand, if the motivation of the boss is based on circumstantial evidence of sexual harassment or discrimination based on a disability or some other suspect classification, then an employee may have a claim for hostile work environment harassment.
The further requirements for hostile work environment sexual harassment are that the harassment is either “serious” and/or “pervasive”. “Serious” generally means that there was an unwanted and offensive touching or threat thereof. “Pervasive” means sexually harassing conduct that consists of more than a few isolated incidents, that is hostile or abusive to employees because of their sex, and frequent enough to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive work environment. Note that a sexually objectionable environment must be both objectively and subjectively offensive. That means that not only must a particular plaintiff perceive the workplace as hostile or abusive, but also that a reasonable person, considering all the circumstances, would share the same perception of a hostile or abusive workplace.
Emotional Distress Claims Are Often Brought With Sexual Harassment Claims
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Victims of sexual harassment often add a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress to their complaints. To support a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant’s conduct was so outrageous that it exceeded all bounds that are usually tolerated in a civilized community. Severe emotional distress means emotional distress of such substantial quality or enduring quality that no reasonable person in a civilized society should be expected to endure it. These high standards for proving severe emotional distress were recently reiterated by the California Court of Appeals in a case out of Orange County called Haberman v. Cengage Learning (2009) 180 Cal.App. 4th 365, which in turn relied on a 2009 case from the California Supreme Court, Hughes v. Pair (2009) 46 Cal. 4th 1035.
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The Broderick Law Firm for Victims of Sexual Harassment and Employment Discrimination
Sexual Harassment and Discrimination
Sexual harassment can include unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, verbal conduct, or physical conduct which affect or interfere with an individual’s work performance or create an offensive work environment for that individual.
Sexual discrimination can include failure to hire or adverse employment action due to gender or sexual orientation. The Broderick Law Firm believes strongly in the fair treatment of all individuals regardless of sex and is committed to representing individuals who have been victims of sexual harassment in the workplace. Mr. Broderick has the experience and knowledge necessary to help you recover the damages you are due. He will vigorously pursue your claim of sexual harassment or sexual discrimination to get you a positive result.
“Quid Pro Quo” Sexual Harassment
“Quid Pro Quo” sexual harassment is when a supervisor makes sexual conduct of an employee a condition for employment benefits or advancement or a condition for avoiding adverse employment action or for advancement.
Hostile Work Environment Sexual Harassment
Hostile work environment sexual harassment occurs when an employee is subject to unwelcome sexual advances or offensive gender-related language or behavior that is sufficiently severe or pervasive from the perspective of a reasonable person with the same fundamental characteristics as the offended employee.
This type of harassment must be sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the offended employee’s employment and create an abusive environment. A single instance of sexual harassment in the “hostile work environment” context may be sufficient, but repeated instances increase the severity of the events, so that a reasonable person would be more likely to find the conduct sexually harassing due to its repetition.
In regard to unwanted sexual advances, a complaining employee must generally show that he or she gave notice that the advances are unwelcome.
Although favoritism by a supervisor towards an employee with whom the supervisor is having a consensual sexual affair does not ordinarily constitute harassment of other employees, a pattern of sexual favoritism may constitute a hostile work environment in the event that the message by management is that sexual affairs are a way to get ahead in the workplace.
Retaliation
It is illegal for an employer to retaliate against a sexual harassment or discrimination victim for making a claim of sexual harassment, for participating in a sexual harassment investigation, or for opposing discriminatory practices.