Lawmaker introduces bills to give alleged sexual harassment victims longer to sue

Declaring, “No one should wake up in the morning fearing what they face when they go to work,” an Assembly member introduced legislation Thursday that would triple the window of time for someone to sue for sexual harassment.

Assemblywoman Eloise Gomez Reyes, a San Bernardino Democrat, unveiled AB 1870 at a Sacramento press conference. The measure would extend the statute of limitations for sexual harassment and also discrimination under the Fair Employment and Housing Act from one year to three years.

Also, Reyes introduced Assembly Bill 1867, a proposed law that would make employers with more than 50 workers keep records of all employee sexual harassment complaints for 10 years.

Both bills have the support of plaintiffs’ lawyer groups including the California Employment Lawyers Association and Consumer Attorneys of California as well as Equal Rights Advocates.

Jessica Stender, Equal Rights Advocates’ senior counsel, spoke at the press conference about the trauma workers face when they are harassed, stating that many are afraid to come forward in the first year or are slow to learn about their legal rights.

While tales of white-collar sexual harassment has grabbed the headlines, Stender noted that it is low-income women who “consistently experience harassment at work.”

The proposals come amid an intense national focus on workplace sexual harassment, a problem under even greater scrutiny at the Capitol, which has been rocked with multiple allegations of lawmakers harassing women while both parties were on the clock.

It is not clear what legislative opposition the bills may face. The Chamber of Commerce did not comment by Thursday afternoon, and the legislation has support from two Republican co-sponsors, along with seven Democratic co-sponsors.

Employment defense lawyers, though, warned that the bills are not a solution to the problem of sexual misconduct.

“I think lengthening the statute of limitations is a bad idea,” said David J. Reis, partner at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP. “We need to figure out how to encourage people to come forward and report harassment sooner so that it can be addressed right away, not encourage people to stay silent longer and wait to report it.”

As for the record-keeping bill, Reis and Kristina Launey, partner at Seyfarth & Shaw LLP, each saw the 10-year requirement as excessive, since most state employment laws have a three-year reporting requirement.

Supporters said that the record-keeping policy would track patterns of sexual harassment.

Launey, who is managing partner of Seyfarth’s Sacramento office, said that she takes a wait-and-see approach to bills that are introduced in January and have not gone through legislative committees.

“We’ll see what form these bills will take in a month or two,” Launey said. “It’s so early and the bills are so slim.”

The measures were introduced after plaintiffs’ lawyers supported a prior law, Senate Bill 820, to prohibit non-disclosure agreements related to sexual assault, harassment and discrimination.

State government is in the throes of addressing sexual harassment after an open letter, written in October, by women who work in Sacramento and say they have suffered through decades of misconduct. Raul Bocanegra, a San Bernardino Democrat, has resigned from the Assembly due to harassment allegations. Tony Mendoza, an Artesia Democrat, and Matt Dababneh, a Van Nuys Democrat, also face accusations.