{"id":542,"date":"2015-03-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/events-lindabury.blawgcloud.com\/2015\/03\/employers-who-implement-effective-sexual-harassment-policies-can-avoid-vicarious-liability.html"},"modified":"2019-12-24T13:17:02","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T18:17:02","slug":"employers-who-implement-effective-sexual-harassment-policies-can-avoid-vicarious-liability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/employers-who-implement-effective-sexual-harassment-policies-can-avoid-vicarious-liability.html","title":{"rendered":"Employers Who Implement Effective Sexual Harassment Policies Can Avoid Vicarious Liability"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In its recent landmark decision in, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><em>Ilda Aguas v. State of New Jersey<\/em><\/span>, No. A-35-13 (Feb. 11, 2015), the New Jersey Supreme court broke new ground in the law of sexual harassment with an opinion that can be viewed as a victory for both employers and employees.\u00a0 For employers, the Court formally adopted the United State Supreme Court\u2019s affirmative defense analysis, which may now be invoked to shield employers from liability for a supervisor\u2019s sexual harassment.\u00a0 Consistent with the\u00a0 affirmative defense, the Court made clear that the defense is only available to those employers who<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/practice-areas\/Workplace_Harassment_Training_and_Investigation\/\"> <u>develop comprehensive and effective sexual harassment programs that include written polices, complaint procedures, employee training and prompt investigation of harassment complaints<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>On the employee side, the Court expanded the definition of \u201csupervisor,\u201d\u00a0thus broadening the scope of employee\u2019s whose conduct can trigger employer liability for workplace sexual harassment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Facts<\/strong>: Aguas, a corrections officer at the Department of Corrections (DOC), alleged her male supervisors sexually harassed her over the course of several months, including inappropriate comments and touching.\u00a0 Aguas conceded her supervisors did not take any tangible employment action against her.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/employers-who-implement-effective-sexual-harassment-policies-can-avoid-vicarious-liability.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading Employers Who Implement Effective Sexual Harassment Policies Can Avoid Vicarious Liability\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Comprehensive sexual harassment programs can provide protection to employers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,247,89],"tags":[],"coauthors":[139],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights","category-labor-employment-insights","category-lindabury"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Employers Who Implement Effective Sexual Harassment Policies Can Avoid Vicarious Liability &#8212; March 5, 2015 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. 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