Sexual assault at work: claims against employers

Legal accuracy check

Chris Schroeder, Esq.

Florida Bar #520381 · D.C. Bar

First published October 5, 2026 · Last checked October 5, 2026

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How claims against an employer work

Sexual assault at work can lead to more than one kind of claim at once: a federal discrimination claim against the employer, state-law claims against the person who did it, and in some cases a workers’ compensation claim. Each has its own rules, its own deadline and its own limits on who can be named. This page covers employers and workplaces; the institutions hub lists the other kinds of institution we cover.

Title VII

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against any individual “with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s … sex” (42 U.S.C. 2000e-2(a)(1)). In Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (June 19, 1986), the Supreme Court held that “hostile environment” sexual harassment is sex discrimination under the statute when it is “sufficiently severe or pervasive” to alter the conditions of employment. A sexual assault by a supervisor or coworker is the kind of conduct these claims are built on. The EEOC describes sexual harassment as including “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature” (EEOC guidance).

The statute reaches an “employer” with “fifteen or more employees for each working day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year” (42 U.S.C. 2000e(b)). A worker at a smaller business has no Title VII claim, though state anti-discrimination laws and ordinary tort claims may still apply.

When the employer is liable for what someone else did

The answer depends on who committed the harassment. Where it was a supervisor, the Supreme Court held in Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (June 26, 1998), that the employer is vicariously liable. If the harassment ended in a “tangible employment action, such as discharge, demotion, or undesirable reassignment,” the employer has no defense. If it did not, the employer can try to show that it “exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior” and that the employee “unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities.”

Where it was a coworker, the standard is negligence. In Vance v. Ball State University, 570 U.S. 421 (June 24, 2013), the Court said “the employer is liable only if it was negligent in controlling working conditions,” and defined a supervisor narrowly, as someone “empowered by the employer to take tangible employment actions against the victim.” In practice, coworker cases often turn on what the employee reported, to whom, and what the employer did next.

State law and workers’ compensation

State tort law supplies the other claims: assault and battery against the person who did it, and negligent hiring, supervision and retention against an employer that knew or should have known a worker was dangerous. Those common-law claims meet a barrier peculiar to the workplace. In most states, workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy against an employer for an injury on the job. California’s version says the right to compensation is “the sole and exclusive remedy” against the employer, with exceptions, one of them where the injury is “proximately caused by a willful physical assault by the employer” (Labor Code 3602). Washington lets a worker sue the employer where the injury results from the employer’s “deliberate intention” to produce it (RCW 51.24.020).

Those exceptions are narrow and they differ from state to state. Whether a coworker’s assault falls inside the workers’ compensation system, and what that means for a negligence claim against the employer, is a question for a lawyer in the state where it happened.

Who can be held responsible

Under Title VII, the defendant is the employer. A charge is filed against the employer, and the lawsuit that follows is brought “against the respondent named in the charge” (42 U.S.C. 2000e-5(f)(1)). The person who committed the assault can be sued under state law for assault and battery, and a criminal case against that person is separate from any civil claim and can run at the same time; see civil and criminal cases.

The harasser does not have to be on the payroll. According to the EEOC, “the harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer.” Assault by a customer, patient or guest can therefore raise the question of what the employer knew and did.

Some workplaces have their own pages. Sexual assault in the armed forces runs on different rules entirely, covered on our page about the military. Workers in hotels and in massage businesses can find more on hotels and trafficking and massage and spa businesses, and our guide to adult sexual assault covers civil claims by adults generally.

Deadline issues for workplace claims

The EEOC charge. A Title VII charge “shall be filed within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred,” or within 300 days where the person first went to a state or local agency (42 U.S.C. 2000e-5(e)(1)). The EEOC says the 300-day period applies “if a state or local agency enforces a law that prohibits employment discrimination on the same basis,” that weekends and holidays count, and that in harassment cases the charge is due “within 180 or 300 days of the last incident of harassment” (EEOC time limits). The agency adds that it will look at earlier incidents too. The clock is measured in months, not years.

Federal workers. Federal employees and applicants use a different process and, according to the EEOC, “generally must contact an agency EEO Counselor within 45 days.”

After the charge. Once the EEOC gives notice that it is closing the charge, a lawsuit may be brought “within ninety days after the giving of such notice” (42 U.S.C. 2000e-5(f)(1)).

State-law claims. Assault, battery and negligence claims have their own limitation periods, set by each state and usually measured in years. Our statute of limitations reference covers the general deadlines. If the employer is a public agency, a written notice of claim may also be due within months.

Damages limits. Title VII caps combined compensatory and punitive damages for each person according to the employer’s size, from $50,000 for an employer with 15 to 100 employees to $300,000 for one with more than 500 (42 U.S.C. 1981a(b)(3)). These are statutory limits on certain categories of damages, not a measure of any claim.

Arbitration clauses

Many employment contracts send disputes to private arbitration. The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (Pub. L. 117-90), approved March 3, 2022, changed that for these claims. At the election of the person alleging the conduct, “no predispute arbitration agreement or predispute joint-action waiver shall be valid or enforceable” in a sexual assault dispute or sexual harassment dispute (9 U.S.C. 402(a)). A court, not an arbitrator, decides whether the law applies. It reaches only claims that arise or accrue on or after March 3, 2022, so an earlier assault may still be subject to an arbitration clause.

Nondisclosure agreements

The Speak Out Act (Pub. L. 117-224), approved December 7, 2022, provides that in a sexual assault or sexual harassment dispute, “no nondisclosure clause or nondisparagement clause agreed to before the dispute arises shall be judicially enforceable” where the conduct is alleged to have violated federal, tribal or state law. It applies to claims filed on or after December 7, 2022. Two limits matter. Employers can still protect trade secrets and proprietary information. And the Act covers only clauses signed before the dispute: a confidentiality term in a settlement signed afterward is outside it.

Current litigation involving employers

Most workplace claims are individual charges and lawsuits that never become public cases. The EEOC also sues employers in its own name after trying to settle through conciliation. Three recent examples, each described from the EEOC’s own release; what the EEOC alleges as plaintiff is an allegation.

In the Gate Gourmet case, the EEOC alleges the company “failed to investigate the employee’s allegations and refused to take steps to protect the woman from the ongoing harassment.” That is the coworker negligence question from Vance. The Bouchon release does not say whether the companies admitted liability, and a settlement is not an admission. No individual is named in any of the three releases, and we name none. The case tracker lists the matters this site follows.

Where to go next

If you were assaulted at work, reporting abuse explains how to report to police, which is separate from an EEOC charge and from a complaint to your employer. Trauma and healing covers support that has nothing to do with a lawsuit. Many survivors are concerned about being named in a public filing; our guide to filing anonymously explains how courts handle that. How to file a claim walks through what a lawsuit involves. Because the EEOC deadline runs in months, a free, confidential case review is worth having early. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.

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