A harassment complaint can arrive from anywhere, and the moment it does, your instinct is to protect your people and your company at once. The fear of exposure, of judgment, of what this could become is real. You need a steady employer-defense attorney who handles it without judgment.
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Receiving a sexual harassment complaint, a Civil Rights Department charge, or a lawsuit is one of the most stressful moments a San Diego employer will face. It feels personal, and it feels urgent. Take a breath. How you respond in the days ahead matters far more than the fact that a complaint was made, and you do not have to figure it out alone.
For more than 26 years, Karin Backstrom has represented California employers exclusively, resolving more than 500 employment matters after training at two of the nation’s largest employer-defense firms.
From the first call, you work with Karin herself. She is the senior employer defense attorney in San Diego who assesses your matter and the one who defends it, not a junior associate you never met. That kind of direct attention is exactly what a business needs when a complaint could put its finances and reputation at risk.
Should the matter turn into a lawsuit, the firm’s employment litigation defense experience is already in place, so nothing has to be handed off at the worst possible moment.
Bring us the complaint exactly as it stands. In one honest conversation you will know what you are facing, what your options are, and what to do next, before you take a step you cannot reverse.
California prohibits workplace sexual harassment under the Fair Employment and Housing Act, enforced by the California Civil Rights Department, the agency formerly known as the DFEH. The law recognizes two broad categories, and understanding the difference matters when you are assessing a complaint.
The first is quid pro quo harassment, where a job benefit is tied to submitting to unwelcome sexual conduct, such as a promotion, a raise, or continued employment being conditioned on it. The second is a hostile work environment, where unwelcome conduct is severe or pervasive enough to alter the conditions of employment. A single serious incident can qualify, and so can a pattern of smaller ones. FEHA applies to employers with five or more employees, which sweeps in many small businesses that assume they are too small to be covered. The conduct does not have to come from a manager, and it does not have to be aimed only at the person complaining.
California defines harassment more broadly than federal law and covers far smaller employers, so a San Diego business can be squarely on the hook where a company in another state would not be.
California treats employer responsibility differently depending on who did the harassing, and the distinction drives much of your risk. When the harasser is a supervisor, the employer is strictly liable for the harassment, meaning liability can attach even if leadership never knew it was happening.
When the harasser is a coworker rather than a supervisor, the standard is negligence, so the question becomes whether the company knew or should have known and then failed to take prompt, appropriate action.
There is a second surprise for many owners. Under FEHA, the individual harasser can be held personally liable, not just the company. This is one of the clearest reasons a general business attorney is the wrong choice for a harassment matter, because the California-specific standards, defenses, and procedures are easy to miss. Harassment claims also rarely arrive alone.
They frequently come bundled with retaliation and wrongful termination claims, especially when the person who complained was later disciplined or let go, which is why the whole picture needs a defense strategy from the start.
Your anti-harassment policy, training records, and complaint process often decide how much a claim can cost you. Let a senior attorney pressure-test them now, while strengthening them is still cheap and entirely on your terms.
The first steps set the tone for everything that follows, and a few of them protect your position more than almost anything else you can do.
Dismissing or minimizing a complaint is one of the surest ways to turn a manageable situation into a much larger one.
Any adverse action against the person who complained can create a separate retaliation claim that is often harder to defend than the original one.
Emails, messages, personnel files, schedules, and prior complaints should be locked down exactly as they exist, not cleaned up or edited.
A prompt, fair, well-documented investigation is central to your defense, and how it is conducted can matter as much as what it finds.
Conversations with your attorney are privileged in a way that internal conversations and outside consultants are not.
If the matter has already become a formal agency charge, the response has strict requirements and deadlines, and it helps to understand the process of responding to a workplace harassment claim before you engage.
Many California charges have a federal counterpart as well, so knowing how to approach responding to an EEOC charge can matter when the same facts are filed in two places.
Every workplace harassment defense starts with an honest read of your exposure, because you cannot decide whether to resolve a matter or fight it until you understand the realistic range of what it could cost. From there, we build the defense around the facts your records actually support.
California does not give employers a complete defense to supervisor harassment the way federal law sometimes does. What it does provide is the avoidable-consequences doctrine, which can reduce the damages an employer owes when the company took reasonable steps to prevent and correct harassment and the employee unreasonably failed to use them. Building and proving that record is often the heart of the defense.
Depending on the facts, we also test the adequacy of the investigation, examine the corrective action taken, and manage the response to the state’s civil rights agency and any parallel federal charge through our agency charges and investigations work. Throughout, the decision to settle or litigate stays yours, made with clear advice and no false comfort.
This is one of the most common questions owners ask, and the honest answer has two parts. Training and a strong written policy do not make a company immune from a harassment claim, and any firm that tells you otherwise is overselling.
What they do is real and valuable. California requires employers with five or more employees to provide harassment-prevention training, generally two hours for supervisors and one hour for other staff, every two years and within six months of hire.
A documented, compliant program, paired with a policy your people actually know how to use, is frequently what supports the avoidable-consequences defense and limits your damages when a claim arrives.
This is also where prevention pays for itself. Karin teaches harassment-prevention courses and has trained employers for years, and keeping your workplace policies and investigations current is far cheaper than defending a claim you were not prepared for.
Business owners and HR leaders across San Diego County and throughout California hire this firm for a combination that is hard to find. You get the credentials of a national employer-defense practice with the direct access of a boutique, from an attorney whose loyalty is never divided. From our office in Old Town San Diego, we represent employers only, across the full state.
The firm represents employers exclusively, so there is no conflict and no divided attention.
Bring us the situation as it is. We have seen difficult facts before, and we work with what is real rather than what should have happened.
You deal with Karin, not a hand-off. The attorney who assesses your matter is the attorney who handles it.
Karin teaches courses for the Human Resources Certification Institute, the body behind the PHR and SPHR credentials, and speaks the same language as the HR leaders we work with.
You can read more about Karin Backstrom and the experience behind the firm, and then decide for yourself.
A harassment matter moves faster than most owners expect, and the sooner we look at it together, the more options you keep. Reach out however is easiest for you.
Under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act, an employer is strictly liable for sexual harassment committed by a supervisor, which means liability can attach even if leadership did not know about it. The company cannot escape liability entirely the way federal law sometimes allows, but it may be able to reduce the damages it owes through the avoidable-consequences doctrine if it took reasonable steps to prevent and correct harassment.
Yes, but the standard is different. For coworker harassment, the employer is liable if it knew or should have known about the conduct and failed to take prompt, appropriate corrective action. That makes how the company responded to the complaint a central issue, which is why a documented, timely response matters so much.
Defenses depend entirely on the facts. They can include showing the conduct did not meet the legal standard, that the company responded promptly and appropriately, or that the investigation was fair and thorough. For supervisor harassment, the avoidable-consequences doctrine can limit damages where the employer had a real prevention and complaint process and the employee unreasonably failed to use it.
Treat the response deadline as the first priority, preserve all relevant records without altering them, avoid any action that could look like retaliation, ensure a proper investigation is underway or preserved, and get privileged legal counsel involved before you respond. A represented employer is generally in a much stronger position than one navigating the agency process alone.
Training and a written policy do not make a company immune, but they are valuable. California requires prevention training for employers with five or more employees, and a documented, compliant program paired with a usable complaint process frequently supports the avoidable-consequences defense and limits damages when a claim is filed.
An employee generally has three years from the alleged violation to file a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department, and then one year after receiving a right-to-sue notice to file a lawsuit. Because that timeline can stretch well beyond the incident, preserving records early is important even when no claim has yet been filed.
A harassment complaint only gets more complicated the longer it waits, and the early choices are the ones that shape the outcome. Take the next step now and face what comes with a plan instead of worry.
