Changes allow more harassment lawsuits

Smaller firms can be sued, and managers may be held liable

Texas workers can more easily sue their managers for sexual harassment in the workplace after amendments to the state’s Labor Code took effect last week.

The changes make even the smallest companies subject to sexual harassment suits, and they make managers personally liable for failing to stop sexual harassment after it’s reported.

Before the legislative changes took hold Sept. 1, employers with fewer than 15 employees could not be sued for sexual harassment, and it was nearly impossible to hold individual managers accountable in court for failing to correct it, said Michael Harvey, a Houston labor and employment attorney for Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr.

The new law also extends the deadline for filing the suits under the statute of limitations to 300 days from 180.

“It’s a movement towards being more employee friendly,” Harvey said, “and a necessary one that will help bring especially these smaller companies into the 21st century in how they treat their employees.”

Trade groups in Texas are noting the changes and alerting their memberships. The Texas Restaurant Association is urging restaurants to implement clearly written sexual harassment policies, train staff according to that policy — mangers, especially — keep records of complaints, and seek legal counsel to investigate them.

Larger companies tend to have human resources departments that do a more thorough job of addressing sexual harassment, Harvey said. Extending legal liability to small companies will address some bad behavior that has been allowed to fester, he added.

“It can’t be the old boys’ club anymore,” Harvey said.

Jennifer Hernandez, communications director for the International Union of Painters & Allied

Trades’ District Council 88, said construction and trade work is slowly shifting to include more women, but women still face challenges in the male-dominated field. She said she hears about sexual harassment “all the time.”

Veronica Mares, a drywall taper in Houston and a member of Hernandez’s union, said through a translator she’s been sexually harassed while working for two different contractors. Foremen try to grab her while she’s working, she said, and when she push

es back, they stop paying her or threaten her with deportation.

“We’re there to work and it’s not fair to us,” she said.

Extending personal liability to managers assigns them a new level of responsibility, Harvey said, and it could make for some awkward scenarios. Say, for example, upper management is reluctant to fire someone who is sexually harassing an employee, Harvey said.

“There’s a potential that could fall back on the lower-level manager even though they didn’t make that decision,” he said. “They’re going to have to act proactively whereas before they didn’t really have skin in the game.”