21 Apr 26
Harassment refers to any unwelcome, pervasive, or severe conduct based on a person’s protected characteristics, like sexual orientation, gender, and religious beliefs, which creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment. It may include bullying, stalking, or sexual harassment, and all kinds of people, including employers, educators, and landlords.
The law protects harassment victims. They can get a restraining order to prevent or stop their harasser from contacting them. If the alleged harasser violates the terms of their restraining order, they can face serious legal penalties, including imprisonment and fines. If the harassment becomes a crime, the prosecutor can file misdemeanor or felony charges against the harasser, resulting in criminal penalties.
If you face harassment charges, a skilled criminal attorney can help you understand your legal situation, options, and help you fight for a favorable outcome.
Understanding Harassment Laws in California
Harassment is any unwanted, severe, and pervasive behavior that creates a hostile environment. It is usually directed at a person’s protected characteristics, such as gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and disability. The Fair Employment & Housing Act requires employers with more than 5 employees to prevent workplace harassment. Victims can file complaints with the Civil Rights Department within three years to obtain compensation for any damage incurred.
Harassment takes all forms of behavior, including slurs, jokes, threats, unwanted sexual advances, and physical intimidation. It can occur anywhere, including public or workplace settings. Serious forms of harassment include stalking, public humiliation, and physical harm.
FEHA protects everyone’s rights. The protection covers a person’s gender, race, color, national origin, religion, ancestry, medical condition, physical or mental disability, genetic information, gender identity, marital status, age, sexual orientation, and veteran or military status.
There are legal remedies available to victims of harassment, including filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or the Civil Rights Department. Victims can also pursue compensation within three years of the last harassment incident.
Additionally, criminal courts issue restraining orders to protect victims against further harassment. They can apply for a temporary or permanent restraining order, depending on the details of their case.
Thus, you can face criminal charges or have a restraining order issued against you if you are a perpetrator of harassment.
Types of Harassments and their Legal Definitions
There are four main types of harassment under California law, each with a distinct legal meaning. They are:
- Non-workplace or civil harassment
- Sexual harassment
- Stalking
- Non-sexual harassment
These kinds of harassment, although differently defined under the law, have some common elements. For example, they all involve unwelcome behavior that is pervasive or severe.
Remember that harassment can be a criminal or civil matter. A skilled attorney can help you understand the various ways a victim of your harassment can pursue the matter, either criminally or civilly, depending on the circumstances of their case. As a criminal matter, you can face serious penalties, including a jail or prison sentence, and a fine. A criminal conviction can also result in a damaging criminal record that can affect your life in various ways. As a civil matter, the victim can file a lawsuit against you for damages for monetary losses, pain, suffering, or mental anguish.
In a workplace-related harassment case, you can face a civil action if you are an employer who failed to protect employees from harassment.
Civil Harassment
Civil harassment takes various forms in California. The most common situations in which a civil harassment matter can arise include the following:
- A case of unlawful use of force or violence, such as battery or assault
- A case involving credible threats of harm, which happens when a person knowingly and willfully issues a statement or acts in a manner that puts another person in reasonable fear for their own or their loved one’s safety.
- A case involving a course, pattern, or series of behavior or acts performed within a particular period (whether long or short), whereby the perpetrator acts willfully and knowingly, and directs their actions or behavior to a particular person, with the intent to annoy, harass, or seriously alarm the victim. The behavior serves no genuine purpose and may cause an ordinary person to experience considerable emotional distress. Also, the behavior actually causes the alleged victim to experience considerable emotional distress.
Examples of actions or behavior that can satisfy the elements of civil or non-work-related harassment include the following:
- When you make repeated calls to another person’s home or workplace, and do not stop even when the receiver asks you to stop
- When you repeatedly send threatening texts, DMs, or emails to another person
However, it is not civil harassment if you engage in constitutionally protected conduct, such as free speech and political activity.
Also, civil harassment does not happen in close relationships. If your repeated behavior puts another person in reasonable fear for their safety, and the person is closely related to you, you can be charged with domestic violence.
Also, civil harassment is generally non-workplace-related. Any form of harassment or intimidation in the workplace is dealt with under different laws.
A victim of civil harassment can obtain a court-issued restriction that lasts up to 3 years. The restrictions may include no-contact orders or stay-away orders that could stipulate that you are not to contact or coming within a particular distance of them. Some restrictions also come with firearm prohibitions that would make the victim feel a lot safer, especially if you have a history of violence. They can file a criminal case and seek a civil harassment restraining order against you. The order will prohibit you (the restrained person) from specific actions or behavior that puts the victim in reasonable fear for their safety.
A violation of this order could result in your arrest, criminal charges, and penalties, which may include a jail or prison sentence and a hefty court fine. Also, a restraining order and any violation of it remain on your record for years, which may affect your future employment or eligibility for critical services such as credit, insurance, and housing.
California Stalking
Stalking charges may happen when you follow, harass, or threaten another person to an extent where the victim reasonably fears for their safety. It is a wobbler offense under PC 646.9, meaning the prosecutor can charge you with a misdemeanor or a felony.
The victim can report you to the police, which could result in an arrest and criminal charges. When this happens, and the case goes to trial, the prosecutor will prove all the elements of the crime to get a conviction against you. The elements of stalking, under California law, include the following:
- That you maliciously and willfully repeatedly followed or harassed another person
- You made credible threats with the intention of putting the victim in credible fear for their or their family’s safety.
- Your actions actually put the victim or their family in reasonable fear for their safety.
Remember that harassment is not a one-time incident but a pattern or course of behavior. In this case, the prosecutor must prove that your behavior happened within a particular period. Your behavior can include two or more actions that occur over a particular period and serve no reasonable purpose. The behavior must also be directed towards a particular person or victim. Also, your behavior must seriously alarm, annoy, terrorize, or torment the alleged victim.
If the prosecutor successfully proves all the elements of stalking and a court delivers a guilty verdict, you can be sentenced to a felony or misdemeanor. This mainly depends on the circumstances of the case and your criminal history.
A misdemeanor conviction for stalking is punishable by a one-year jail sentence and a fine of $1000. A felony conviction is punishable by a prison sentence of up to 5 years and by court fines of up to $10,000.
A felony conviction for stalking is likely under the following circumstances:
- If your stalking violates a court-issued restraining order
- If you have a prior conviction on your criminal record for stalking, including cases where the victims in both cases are different
Sexual Harassment or Hostile Work Environment
The Fair Employment & Housing Act and the federal law advocate for workplaces free of sexual harassment and hostility. Under these two laws, sexual harassment can mean any of the following:
- Hostile work environment
- Quid pro quo harassment
The latter is the type of harassment perpetrated by a supervisor or someone in authority who offers a work-related benefit for sexual favors. A victim of quid pro quo can file a claim against their employer for workplace harassment or hostility. However, they must satisfy the following elements for their claim to be successful and result in compensation:
- That they worked under you, applied to work with you, or offered services to you
- You or your agent made unwelcome sexual advances or any other similar behavior towards them
- You made a favorable work-related condition contingent on that behavior or those advances. You could have uttered or insinuated this
- Your or your agent’s harassment hurt the victim, and that behavior substantially contributed to that hurt
A hostile work environment refers to any unwelcome behavior that creates an environment that is hostile. It may refer to any of the following behaviors:
- An employee who consistently receives unwelcome sexual advances, degrading comments, lewd conduct, or slurs in a working environment
- The unwelcome behavior is generally based on their sex
- The actions are pervasive or severe enough to affect their employment condition
Generally, workplace harassment must happen repeatedly to be considered pervasive enough to harm a victim. However, some isolated instances of severe behavior can satisfy the elements of this type of harassment, for example, sexual assault.
Remember that, as an employer, you owe your workers a safe working environment. Thus, a victim of sexual harassment in your workplace can file a claim against you for compensation for failing to protect or help them. They can do this with the Civil Rights Department. The department will investigate the matter to determine its credibility and gather more evidence. If the CRD finds you liable for the victim’s damages, it can give them the right to sue you in a civil court. From this, the victim can recover monetary, nonmonetary, and punitive damages from you or your business.
Non-Sexual Work-Related Harassment
Workplace harassment is not always sexual; it can take any other form. Fortunately, the law protects all workers from all forms of workplace harassment, whether sexual or non-sexual. This means that your workers should be protected from harassment based on their race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, medical condition, or veteran status.
Even in non-sexual harassment cases, the case must satisfy the requirements of workplace hostility or quid pro quo for a victim to file a successful claim against their employer. Most cases of non-sexual work-related harassment involve hostile work environments.
Remember that the perpetrator’s behavior must be pervasive or severe enough to affect the conditions of a victim’s employment. This means that a single or minor incident may not satisfy the conditions of filing a claim against you. However, severe acts, like physical assault, or a pattern of behavior that repeatedly happens over a particular period, can.
Also, remember that in a workplace setting, the harasser can be anyone, including the supervisor, manager, co-worker, you (the business owner, or even a client. However, as an employer, you are liable for all resulting damage. This is because you are legally mandated to create a conducive working environment for your workers. In addition to preventing workplace harassment, you must take immediate action if a case of harassment is reported to you. If not, you are responsible for any damages resulting from workplace harassment that harms your employee.
How To Fight Harassment-Related Charges
Remember that you can face harassment charges when your victim files a criminal case against you for harassment, stalking, or violating a restraining order. A skilled criminal attorney will help you understand the legal implications of your charges, your options, and the strategies you can use to fight your charges. Here are some of the strategies you can use to obtain a favorable outcome:
Hiring an Attorney Early in the Legal Process
An arrest for harassment or stalking can cause a lot of confusion or anxiety, causing you to make mistakes that could worsen your legal situation. For example, you could confess to the police or take the matter to social media, which may hurt your case further. Having an attorney protects you from incriminating yourself. Remember that anything you say during and after your arrest can be used against you during the trial. Your attorney will protect you from actions or utterances that may harm your case.
They will answer any questions the police have on your behalf. They will also work with case investigators to determine the evidence against you. This helps them plan a strong defense that could result in a reasonable outcome.
Fighting Charges During the Trial
With the help of your attorney, you can collect evidence to counter the allegations against you. For example, if you are accused of stalking, you can present evidence to show the reason why you visit the same places as your accuser. It could be that you work in the same building as the alleged victim or have the same interests. If you are accused of violating a restraining order, you can use evidence to prove that the restraining order was invalid or that you had not been properly served with the evidence.
A skilled attorney will prepare your defense according to the charges you face. They will use defense strategies that will create reasonable doubt in the prosecutor’s case. If the prosecutor cannot prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, the court will rule in your favor.
Challenging Your Accuser’s Credibility
It is not unusual to be falsely accused of harassment or stalking. False accusations are very common. Sadly, if you do not carefully prove your innocence, you could be convicted of a crime you did not commit in the first place.
A competent criminal defense attorney can challenge the credibility of your accuser. This may work if there is a history of the alleged victim filing false claims or lying. Your attorney will investigate the case, including reviewing previous cases involving the victim, to establish a pattern of false claims, which can be used to discredit the victim.
If the alleged victim cannot be fully trusted, it will be difficult for the court to believe the accusations against you enough to convict you of the charges you face.
Find a Competent Criminal Attorney Near Me
If you face harassment charges in Van Nuys, speaking with an attorney can help you understand your situation and your legal options to defend yourself. An attorney can also defend your rights and help you navigate complex legal processes. The type of support and legal help they provide depends on the type of harassment charges you face.
At Leah Legal, we understand how physically and emotionally straining criminal charges can be. We work closely with defendants facing harassment-related charges to help them protect their rights and defend themselves. Call us at 818-484-1100 to learn more about your legal options and our services.
