Newspapers, television, and several other news outlets have frequently focused on sexual harassment allegations in politics, Hollywood, and other high-profile workplace environments. However, sexual harassment is also common in different industries; only the cases do not make headlines.

Real estate, in particular, is usually a challenging industry to work in. The sector often presents risky scenarios to the workers, who might feel mandated to interact with these scenarios as part of the job. Realtors are typically expected to meet with clients, frequently strangers, alone in properties that may lack cell reception or be secluded. This particularly poses a danger to female realtors, and sexual harassment may be the outcome.

If you have faced sexual harassment as a real estate agent, consult an experienced sexual harassment lawyer. At Empower Sexual Harassment Attorneys, we have handled sexual harassment cases in the real estate industry across California, and we can help you obtain the justice and compensation you deserve. Call us today to share your case details.

An Overview of Real Estate Sexual Harassment

The real estate field is competitive and fast-paced, and there are typically a lot of personal interactions. These can be enabling factors for sexual harassment conduct, and sometimes these behaviors go unchecked. Realtors may be subject to inappropriate conduct by their supervisors, managers, fellow realtors, investors, clients, et cetera, ranging from sexually related comments to severe misconduct such as rape.

These behaviors can devastatingly impact their emotional, mental, and physical aspects. Federal and California laws safeguard realtors against all forms of harassment, including sexual harassment. Victims may sue the company they work for if it failed to stop the harassment or the individual who perpetrated the sexual harassment and may be eligible for compensation from these parties.

Forms of Real Estate Sexual Harassment

Real estate falls sexual harassment falls under two categories of sexual harassment: hostile work environment and quid pro quo.

Quid pro quo sexual harassment happens when an employee of a higher ranking in the real estate company conditions a realtor’s job-related benefits on their agreeing to sexual conduct or advances. That is, an influential person in the company, who is in a position to grant job benefits, offers those benefits to their junior realtors if those realtors agree to do sexual favors for them. Examples of job benefits include income raises, promotions, hiring, continued employment, etc.

Instances qualifying as quid pro quo sexual harassment in the real estate industry include the following:

  • A supervisor tells a realtor that they will raise their pay if they agree to date them.
  • A human resources manager offers to promote a realtor in exchange for sex
  • A manager threatens to demote or fire a real estate agent unless they have sex with them

This form of sexual harassment entails an explicit abuse of power. Even one incident suffices to qualify as quid pro quo harassment; no pattern or series of conduct is required. In California, companies are responsible for the behaviors of high-ranking personnel who commit quid pro quo sexual harassment.

The second form of sexual harassment in the real estate industry is a hostile workplace environment. This form of sexual harassment happens when a realtor faces unwanted sexual behavior or actions that create a working environment so hostile, offensive, or intimidating. Real estate involves heavy interaction between realtors and clients, supervisors, other agents, managers, etc. If any of these parties utters sexual comments or commits sexual acts against a realtor, it can be deemed hostile workplace environment sexual harassment.

Pervasive and severe acts creating an abusive, offensive, or intimidating workplace environment are deemed sexual harassment. Unlike quid pro quo sexual harassment, a hostile workplace environment does not entail having a direct connection between employment decisions and sexual conduct. Instead, it involves conduct that impedes a realtor’s ability to fulfill their duties. Instances that qualify as a hostile workplace environment sexual harassment include the following:

  • Derogatory slurs or remarks based on sexual orientation
  • Persistent remarks regarding appearance, suggestive emails, or flirting
  • Unwanted physical advances or touching that is sexual in nature
  • Exhibition of sexually explicit materials or images at work
  • Repeated sexual comments, innuendos, or jokes

The legal standard for hostile workplace environment sexual harassment is whether a reasonable individual would deem the conduct offensive. Regarding a hostile workplace environment, the action must be recurrent enough to warrant unbearable working conditions. An incident that occurs only once may not constitute sexual harassment. 

Both forms of sexual harassment can be devastating, and knowing what form you have faced can help you decide how to proceed legally.

Laws Against Sexual Harassment in Real Estate

In California, sexual harassment of realtors is prohibited under state and federal laws. These include the FEHA (Fair Employment and Housing Act) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits real estate sexual harassment and other types of employment discrimination on the federal level. This law applies to companies with fifteen or more workers. According to it, an employer is in charge of stopping sexual harassment if it knew or should have known it was happening. You must bring your complaint to the EEOC (Employment Opportunity Commission) within the stipulated filing period before you can move to court.

Whereas Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides crucial protections against workplace sexual harassment, California’s FEHA statute offers broader coverage, longer filing timeframes, and lower worker thresholds. This makes it a stronger statute for realtors in California.

FEHA safeguards realtors from all types of workplace harassment and discrimination. The law requires that any employer with five or more workers stop sexual harassment if it knew or should have known it was happening. It holds employers strictly responsible for harassment by supervisors, so an employer cannot escape accountability by alleging they never knew about the harassment.

FEHA also requires an employer to take immediate action should harassment occur, including investigating fairly and taking corrective measures. This law safeguards job applicants and interns from sexual harassment, something Title VII does not always cover. It also forbids retaliation, ensuring an employer cannot demote, harass, or fire an employee for reporting harassment or being part of an investigation. Under FEHA, you can file your complaint with the California CRD (Civil Rights Department) before moving to court.

Steps to Take If You Have Faced Sexual Harassment

If you have faced sexual harassment, these steps can assist you in protecting your rights and obtaining the compensation and justice you deserve:

  • Documenting the harassment incidents. Keep comprehensive accounts of the harassment incidents, including times, dates, and any conversations you may use as evidence.
  • Escalating the harassment. Inform your employer, HR department, or manager. Make the report in writing to create a trail of your complaint.
  • Seeking legal counsel. Call a sexual harassment attorney to share your situation and explore the legal avenues for pursuing damages and ending the harassment.
  • Filing an official complaint. If your employer fails to take action, you can bring a sexual harassment claim with the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) or the California CRD (Civil Rights Department)

Importance of Escalating Real Estate Sexual Harassment

If you are subject to sexual harassment as a real estate agent, you want to report the incident immediately. Prompt reporting can assist in keeping you safe, preserving your right to sue, and protecting others.

Preventing Future Cases

Remaining silent about harassment may place others in danger of having the same experience at some point. Whereas it should not have to be you as a realtor or employee to prevent workplace sexual harassment, you can do your part to safeguard others by escalating any incident to your superiors, regardless of how insignificant it may seem. Prompt reporting could assist you in promoting a more inclusive and safer workplace culture and lead to the perpetrator being held liable.

Documenting Workplace Sexual Harassment

It is essential to document your encounter if dealing with workplace sexual harassment explicitly. Reporting harassment can form a chronology of events and provide a comprehensive record of any harm you sustained. This could assist you in holding the real estate agency or perpetrator liable in the future, if need be, by showing a series of sexual harassment incidents and your employer’s failure to take any action.

Apart from reporting harassment to an HR agent or supervisor, document the issue for your records. Describe each event in writing, including the location, time, and date. Note the names of any witnesses and all those involved. Make copies of all incident reports. If someone harasses you with written notes, messages, emails, or images, store all of them as evidence.

Obtaining the Association’s Help Early

Reporting harassment can help you receive assistance from the brokerage, association, or agency early, before things worsen. Your real estate company should immediately investigate the problem and take appropriate action to find a solution, such as terminating or suspending the offender. Immediate reporting can safeguard you and other realtors from further sexual harassment by a perpetrator in your place of work. It might also prevent the situation from worsening, for example, the sexual harassment rising to the level of sexual assault.

Holding the Real Estate Agency Accountable

Establishing a record showing you escalated sexual harassment incidents to the real estate agency can assist you in proving negligence should your employer fail to take the right action. Should the association fail to take immediate measures to solve the matter, for example, by suspending the supposed offender and performing a detailed investigation, you can use your initial report as evidence against the agency in a civil claim. You might qualify to recover damages from the brokerage firm or agency for failing to safeguard you from harassment.

Conserving Your Right to Sue

Escalating sexual harassment incidents can form the basis for a lawsuit later. Reporting can preserve your right to sue your employer or the perpetrator. On the contrary, waiting or failing to report could lower your ability to file a compensation lawsuit. The responsible party may use your failure to report as evidence against you. They may assert that the sexual harassment never occurred. If you have sued your employer, they may argue that they did not know about the problem. Safeguard your rights by escalating sexual harassment promptly.

Barriers to Escalating Sexual Harassment Incidents

As a realtor, you may face hindrances to escalating sexual harassment incidents. Fear of retaliation in the form of workplace alienation, job loss, or demotion is one common reason realtors do not report.

However, California has anti-retaliation statutes to safeguard workers from being punished or fired for reporting workplace harassment in good faith, FEHA being one of them. Under these statutes, retaliation is forbidden even when you were mistaken about the harassment, provided you reported in good faith. That said, realtors who report sexual harassment, participate in investigations, or decline advances cannot be demoted, reassigned to worse positions, fired, or awarded poor performance reviews as punishment.

Filing a Sexual Harassment Claim

If you have faced sexual harassment as a realtor, you can pursue compensation by taking legal action against the liable party. Firstly, you can bring the matter to your employer. If it fails to take action, you can bring your complaint to the California CRD. The CRD investigates discrimination and harassment claims under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act.

You could also bring your complaint to the EEOC. This federal body is responsible for probing discrimination and harassment complaints under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. You have a maximum of three years, counting from when the sexual harassment incident happened, to bring your complaint to CRD and up to 300 days to file your complaint with the EEOC.

Once you file your complaint with either agency, they might decide to probe your sexual harassment claims. If they find that the sexual harassment claims are valid, they will take the appropriate action. For example, they may provide mediation services, enabling you to settle the matter with the liable party without going to court. However, if either agency finds the supposed liable party did not commit sexual harassment, they may close the case.

But before they close the case, the agency will issue you a right-to-sue letter. This letter grants you permission to go ahead and file a suit in court against the liable party. You may not be able to bring a lawsuit for damages until you receive this letter. You could ask the agency to send you the letter if you have not received it.

You have a maximum of ninety days from receiving the right-to-sue letter to bring your sexual harassment suit to civil court. You can file the lawsuit in federal court or the California Superior Court based on the jurisdiction and case facts. The liable parties will be served with a notice of the suit and given time to respond.

You want to contact an experienced sexual harassment lawyer to assist you with navigating this process. It is crucial to take the appropriate steps to safeguard evidence that is helpful to your case. Also, avoiding committing any errors that may jeopardize your case is essential. A lawyer can assist you in avoiding mistakes, taking steps to safeguard evidence, and initiating the process for bringing a harassment suit.

How to Prove Sexual Harassment

To prove that you experienced sexual harassment, you must show that certain elements are true. You must establish that:

  • You are a real estate agent
  • The liable party made sexual requests, demands, solicitations, or advances, or
  • Engaged in other visual, physical, or verbal hostile or sexual conduct, and
  • You suffered damages due to their action

Courts will look at various factors when determining whether the harassment occurred. Some of these factors include the following:

  • How long did the harassment go on for?
  • How severe the harassment conduct was
  • Whether the harassment reasonably interfered with your job
  • Whether the harassment act was threatening or physically humiliating, or it was simply an offensive comment

Courts also look at the nature of the harassment act. Bodily touching, for example, can be viewed as more offensive than verbal abuse. How often the harassment occurs, and the context are also critical elements. An incident must be beyond isolated, trivial, occasional, or sporadic to be viewed as sexual harassment. It must happen successively and be regular, generalized, or repeated.

Damages You Can Recover

If you win your lawsuit or claim, you can recover economic, non-economic, and, in some cases, punitive damages from the liable party. Economic damages are meant to compensate for the tangible monetary losses the harassment caused. These losses include the following:

  • Job search charges. If you were to lose or leave your job because of workplace sexual harassment, you might have to look for another job. In this case, the court can award you damages for finding a new job.
  • Medical cost. Real estate sexual harassment can stretch from offensive comments to sexual assault. Consequently, a victim may have to seek treatment. If you had to go for treatment after facing sexual harassment at work, the court can award damages for medical bills.
  • Lost wages. Being sexually harassed can lead a realtor to miss going to work while seeking treatment or because of the trauma. It can also result in demotion, missed promotions, or termination. If this happened in your case, you may recover damages for the income you lost during the days you missed work. The damages will compensate for the future, current, and past lost wages.
  • Legal costs and attorney’s fees. You may be able to recover court costs and attorney’s fees. This compensation motivates victims to assert their legal rights.

Non-economic damages compensate for the intangible losses resulting from sexual harassment. They include the following:

  • Emotional distress. The court may grant you compensation for the depression, trauma, or mental anguish the sexual harassment caused.
  • Pain and suffering. Being subject to sexual harassment may cause reputational damage, humiliation, and an adverse effect on a person’s life. The court can award you compensation for going through all this.

Based on the case facts, you can be awarded punitive damages if you win your lawsuit. These damages are not meant to compensate the victim for their injuries or losses. Instead, they aim to punish the offender and discourage similar behavior from other parties. You will be awarded punitive damages if the liable party acted with oppression or malice. These damages necessitate a higher level of proof. Thus, you require the counsel of an experienced attorney to seek them.

Besides financial compensation, the court might order your employer to take corrective measures. Some of these actions include the following:

  • Changing workplace policies
  • Providing sexual harassment training
  • Reinstating you
  • Taking appropriate actions against the offender, like terminating them

These measures aim to avert future harassment cases and achieve a safer working environment.

If you lose your lawsuit and are not content with the court’s decision, you can file your appeal to a higher court.

How Sexual Harassment Can Affect a Realtor

Sexual harassment can affect you as a realtor, both personally and professionally.  These effects include the following:

  • Career disruption or stagnation. A brokerage or real estate agency might suffer severe repercussions from reports of sexual harassment. Consequently, realtors who report these instances may encounter resistance. Retaliation might be demotion, termination, or pay reduction.  Other realtors might feel compelled to resign, leading to the loss of significant experience.
  • Damaged professional relations. Different people are liable for harassment in real estate. These include supervisors, clients, and colleagues. Harassment might compel a realtor to dodge certain coworkers or clients. This avoidance could prevent referrals and networking.
  • Diminished focus. Facing sexual harassment can result in distraction or zero motivation to continue working. This can lead to poor performance and missed opportunities.
  • Emotional distress. Being subject to sexual harassment can lead to severe psychological and emotional damage. You could experience fear, depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem after the occurrence. These emotional struggles could make keeping the positivity and confidence required to interact with clients more challenging.

Contact an Experienced Sexual Harassment Lawyer Near Me

Facing sexual harassment can cause you severe career, emotional, and mental struggles. The good news is that you need not wait until the situation worsens. Federal and California laws safeguard all realtors from workplace sexual harassment, meaning you can pursue justice if you are affected by filing a sexual harassment claim or lawsuit.

A successful claim or lawsuit will lead to compensation recovery. However, to increase the chances of winning your case, you require help from a knowledgeable sexual harassment lawyer. At Empower Sexual Harassment Attorneys, we can help you obtain the justice and damages you deserve if you work in San Diego, CA. Contact us at 619-604-3027 for a free consultation.