The Costs Of Sexual Harassment Litigation

A growing number of states now require you to conduct sexual harassment training. If your business is located in one of those states then you need to provide training because it’s the law. But what about where state law does not require you to conduct such training?

In light of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, an employer that conducts no sexual harassment training will be at a serious disadvantage in defending a sexual harassment claim. The fact that training was done can be a partial defense in harassment cases. While this case law imposes no explicit requirement to conduct training, it’s clear that if your business faces a sexual harassment suit, your company will want to be able to say it provided training. This is especially true when you consider that the successful plaintiff in a sexual harassment lawsuit may be entitled to damages for all of the following:

         - Lost wages
         - Emotional distress
         - Punitive damages
         - Plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees

Simply stated, if sexual harassment exists in your workplace then your company is not getting the maximum benefit from its most important resource: its employees.

Given that sexual harassment can have so many harmful, bottom-line effects on your business, educating your workforce to prevent sexual harassment is a necessary investment in your company and its employees.

You can read a more detailed explanation of the reasons to conduct training here and here.

Click here to view the Preventing Sexual Harrasment Presentation.