Supervisor Sexual Harassment Lawyer in New York City

Standing Up to Bosses Who Abuse Their Power

When the person harassing you controls your schedule, your pay, and whether you keep your job, saying no carries a real risk. The law treats that abuse of power seriously.

Phillips & Associates, PLLC represents employees across New York who have been sexually harassed by a boss, manager, or supervisor. We hold employers accountable when someone they put in charge uses that authority to pressure, proposition, or punish the people under them.

You do not have to wait until you are fired, and you do not have to quit to act. A single serious incident can be enough, especially when a job, a raise, or a promotion is tied to going along with it. When you work with our team, you get:

• More than $360 million recovered for employees
• Employment-only law firm with more than 2,000 sexual harassment matters handled
• Representing employees against supervisors, executives, business owners, physicians, law firm partners, and other people in positions of authority
• No attorney fees unless we recover compensation for you

If your boss is sexually harassing you, our New York City supervisor sexual harassment attorneys can help. Call (866) 229-9441 or contact us online for a FREE consultation.

Phillips & Associates focuses on employment cases involving workplace power dynamics. The firm represents employees in sexual harassment, retaliation, workplace relationship, and discrimination matters involving supervisors, executives, founders, CEOs, business owners, law firm partners, physicians, managers, and other people who control an employee's pay, schedule, assignments, promotion, or continued employment. The firm regularly litigates against sophisticated employers, major institutions, and the national defense firms that represent them.

Examples of Our Results

• $2,375,000 — Sexual Harassment & Retaliation. VP-level executive at a healthcare company. After a prior consensual relationship ended, a senior executive subjected her to a sustained campaign of unwanted advances, solicitation of sex, unwanted touching, and sexually charged comments, then retaliated when she refused. Resolved at pre-suit mediation. Lead: Alexander Zugaro.
• $1.5 Million — Sexual Harassment & Retaliation involving misconduct by a senior executive.
• $900,000 — Sexual Harassment & Retaliation. Administrative assistant at a large auto dealership. The general manager subjected her to sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, including sexual comments and sexual gestures. Resolved at pre-suit mediation. Lead: William K. Phillips.
• $500,000 — Sexual Harassment & Retaliation. Executive assistant at a cryptocurrency company. The founder and chief strategy officer subjected her to a pervasive pattern of sexually explicit conduct, including nude photographs, descriptions of his sexual encounters, and requests to facilitate his affairs, then forced her out when she ignored his advances. Resolved pre-litigation. Lead: Jesse S. Weinstein.

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Key Takeaways

• Harassment by a boss is treated more seriously than coworker harassment because of the power they hold over your job.
• A single serious incident can be enough under New York State or New York City law.
• When a boss ties a job, raise, shift, or promotion to sexual conduct, that is quid pro quo harassment, and it is illegal on its own.
• Your employer usually cannot escape responsibility for a supervisor's harassment just because you did not use its complaint process.
• Reporting or opposing harassment is protected. If a boss punishes you after you reject advances, end a relationship, or make a complaint, those facts may support a sexual harassment, retaliation, or wrongful termination claim.
• A workplace relationship with a supervisor does not automatically bar a claim. What happens after the relationship ends is often the legal issue.

On This Page

• What counts as supervisor harassment
• What it looks like
• Which laws protect you
• Retaliation after harassment
• When a workplace relationship with a supervisor goes bad
• What to do right now
• What you can recover
• Filing deadlines
• FAQ

What Counts as Sexual Harassment by a Supervisor?

Sexual harassment by a supervisor is unwelcome sexual conduct from someone with authority over your job. It takes two main forms, and a boss can be responsible for either.

The first is quid pro quo harassment, where a job benefit is tied to sexual conduct, such as a boss who offers a promotion, a raise, or continued employment in exchange for a date or sexual favors, or who threatens consequences if you refuse. The second is a hostile work environment, where repeated or serious sexual conduct makes your workplace intimidating, offensive, or degrading.

What sets supervisor cases apart is the abuse of power. When the person harassing you decides your shifts, your reviews, and your future at the company, saying no carries real risk for your career. Courts and juries tend to view harassment by an authority figure as more serious than the same words from a peer.

What Does Sexual Harassment by a Boss Look Like?

It is not always obvious, and it is not always physical. Common examples include:

• Unwelcome sexual advances, propositions, or requests for sexual favors.
• Conditioning a job, promotion, raise, schedule, or assignment on sexual conduct.
• Inappropriate texts, emails, or messages, including explicit images or sexual comments after hours.
• Comments about your body, appearance, or what you wear.
• Intrusive questions or remarks about your sex life or relationships.
• Repeated requests to meet socially or go on dates after you have declined.
• Punishing you for turning down advances, or rewarding those who go along.
• Retaliating against you after a workplace relationship with your boss or a supervisor ends.
• Giving favorable treatment to employees involved in a relationship while punishing or excluding those who reject or end one.
• Threatening your job for reporting the conduct.

A boss does not have to touch you, and the conduct does not have to happen at the office. Harassment that arrives by phone, text, or app, or that happens at a work dinner or event, can still be sexual harassment outside the office.

Is It Harassment if Your Boss Asks You Out?

It can be. A single, polite invitation is not automatically illegal, but the power gap between a boss and an employee, or an interviewer and an applicant, changes everything. Many people feel they cannot say no without putting their job or offer at risk. You have the right to refuse, and your refusal cannot lawfully be held against you.

It crosses the line into harassment when the requests keep coming after you have declined, when they are paired with comments about your body or sexual remarks, or when a job, a promotion, or an offer is dangled in exchange. An interviewer who offers a position on the condition that you go out with them is committing quid pro quo harassment. If a boss or interviewer keeps asking, write down each request with the date and save any messages, and make clear, where you safely can, that the attention is unwelcome.

Many supervisor harassment cases do not involve a single invitation. They involve repeated requests for dates, pressure to spend time alone together, increasingly personal text messages, or attention that continues after an employee has made clear it is unwelcome. In other cases, what begins as a workplace relationship later changes after the employee attempts to end it. When a supervisor's authority over an employee's job becomes part of that dynamic, both the relationship itself and what happens afterward may become legally significant.

Which Laws Protect You From a Harassing Boss?

Three laws can apply, and New York's are stronger than the federal floor.

Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act bars sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination, but it applies only to employers with 15 or more employees and sets a higher bar to prove a hostile environment. The New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL) reaches every employer in the state, regardless of size, and since 2019 no longer requires you to show the conduct was "severe or pervasive." The New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL) is broader still and is among the most protective in the country.

Under the NYSHRL, harassment does not have to meet the federal severe-or-pervasive standard and may be actionable when it rises above petty slights or trivial inconveniences. The NYCHRL is broader still and is interpreted in favor of strong worker protections.

Why Harassment by a Supervisor Is Treated More Seriously

When a coworker harasses you, your employer is generally liable only if it knew or should have known and failed to act. A supervisor is different. Because a boss acts with the company's authority, the employer faces far greater exposure for a supervisor's conduct, and when the harassment comes with a tangible job consequence like a firing or demotion, the employer can be strictly liable.

New York law goes further than federal law here. An employer cannot escape responsibility for a supervisor's harassment simply by pointing to an anti-harassment policy or complaint line you did not use. The harasser can also face individual liability under state and city law. When the person harassing you is at the top of the company, those same principles apply to harassment by a CEO or owner.

When a Workplace Relationship With a Supervisor Goes Bad

Many supervisor sexual harassment cases do not begin with an unwanted advance. Some begin with what appears to be a consensual workplace relationship.

The legal issues often arise after the relationship changes or ends.

A supervisor may begin excluding the employee from meetings, reducing hours, changing assignments, denying promotions, issuing negative performance reviews, or terminating the employee after the relationship ends.

The power imbalance matters. When one person controls another employee's pay, schedule, assignments, evaluations, or continued employment, courts often look beyond whether the relationship appeared voluntary. They may consider whether the employee realistically felt free to refuse the relationship or end it without risking professional consequences.

Even where a relationship began consensually, retaliation after it ends may violate Title VII, the New York State Human Rights Law, the New York City Human Rights Law, or all three.

Common examples include:

• Suddenly receiving poor performance reviews after ending the relationship
• Losing desirable shifts, assignments, clients, or accounts
• Being excluded from meetings or advancement opportunities
• Increased scrutiny or disciplinary action
• Being pressured to resign
• Termination shortly after ending the relationship

Sexual Harassment Isn't Only a Man Harassing a Woman

Sexual harassment law applies regardless of the genders involved. It is just as unlawful when a woman harasses a man, when a man harasses another man, or when a woman harasses another woman. Harassment of men, and harassment between people of the same sex, is often underreported, but it is covered by the same federal, state, and city laws. What matters is the conduct, not who it comes from.

What About Retaliation After Supervisor Harassment?

Retaliation is one of the most common ways these situations escalate, and it is its own violation of the law. You are protected when you reject a boss's advances, complain about harassment, or take part in an investigation, and an employer cannot lawfully punish you for any of it.

Retaliation shows up in a few recognizable patterns:

• After you say no. You turn down a supervisor's advances and suddenly lose shifts, get worse assignments, receive your first bad review, or are pushed out.
• After you report. You complain to HR or file a charge, and the consequences follow. That can support a retaliation claim and, if you are fired, a claim for wrongful termination arising from sexual harassment.
• After a relationship ends. A relationship with a boss that ends and is followed by demotion, exclusion, or termination can be unlawful, even if it started consensually.
• When the relationship was never truly a choice. If a supervisor used your job as leverage to start or continue a relationship, that pressure is quid pro quo harassment, and whether it could ever be consensual is a fair question.

Many employees mistakenly believe they cannot pursue a claim because the relationship was initially consensual. In many cases, however, the legal issue is not simply whether a relationship existed. It is whether a supervisor later used workplace authority to punish an employee after the relationship ended, after advances were rejected, or after the employee complained. The timing of those events often becomes important evidence.

Timing is often the strongest evidence. An employee with years of positive performance reviews who suddenly receives criticism, write-ups, reduced responsibilities, or termination shortly after rejecting a supervisor's advances, ending a workplace relationship, or reporting harassment may have strong evidence that retaliation motivated the employer's actions.

What to Do if Your Boss Is Sexually Harassing You

A few steps protect both you and any future claim:

• Save evidence you lawfully possess. Keep texts, emails, voicemails, and screenshots, and store copies somewhere you can access if your employment ends. Do not take confidential, privileged, or proprietary materials unrelated to your claim.
• Preserve text messages, WhatsApp messages, Signal messages, Teams chats, Slack messages, calendar invitations, social media messages, and other digital communications involving the supervisor whenever lawfully available.
• Write down each incident with the date, time, place, what happened, and anyone who saw it.
• Where you can do so safely, make clear the conduct is unwelcome.
• Report it in writing, and if the harasser is your direct boss, take it to HR or another manager up the chain. Handling unwanted advances from a supervisor carefully is important, and an internal finding that a complaint was "unsubstantiated" does not necessarily decide whether you have a legal claim.
• Do not sign a severance agreement or non-disclosure agreement without having it reviewed first.
• Talk to an employment lawyer before you resign, since quitting can affect both your claim and your finances.

What Can You Recover in a Supervisor Sexual Harassment Case?

Recovery depends on the facts and which law applies, and New York and New York City law tend to offer more than federal law. Remedies can include back pay and lost benefits, front pay for future losses, compensatory damages for emotional distress, punitive damages where the conduct was egregious, and attorney's fees and costs. Federal law caps certain compensatory and punitive damages based on employer size. New York State and New York City claims may allow broader recovery.

How Long Do You Have to File a Claim in New York?

Deadlines depend on which law and forum you use, and a missed one can end a strong case.

• Under the NYSHRL, you generally have three years, both in court and for a sexual harassment complaint filed with the New York State Division of Human Rights.
• Under the NYCHRL, you have three years to sue in court, and a complaint with the New York City Commission on Human Rights also carries a three-year deadline for sexual harassment.
• Federal claims run through the EEOC, where you generally have 300 days to file a charge in New York.

Acting early also preserves texts, emails, and witness memory while they are still available.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is It Quid Pro Quo Harassment if My Boss Offered Me a Promotion for a Date?

Yes. Tying a promotion, raise, shift, or any job benefit to a date or sexual conduct is quid pro quo harassment, and a single instance can be enough to bring a claim.

Are Inappropriate Texts From My Boss Sexual Harassment?

They can be. Sexual messages, explicit images, or repeated unwanted advances by text or app are harassment, even when they arrive after hours or off a work device. Save them, since they are often strong evidence.

My Boss Keeps Commenting on My Body. Is That Harassment?

Comments about your body, appearance, or clothing can be harassment, especially when they are repeated, sexual, or come from someone with authority over your job. You do not have to laugh it off or accept it as a workplace norm.

Do I Have to Report to HR Before I Can Sue My Boss?

No. Reporting internally is not a legal prerequisite, though what you reported and how the company responded can matter. An employer generally cannot avoid liability for a supervisor's harassment just because you did not use its complaint process.

What if I Went Along With It at First?

You may still have a claim. Going along with a boss's advances out of fear for your job does not make the conduct lawful, and pressure backed by your boss's authority is the heart of a quid pro quo case.

Can I Still Have a Case If I Dated My Boss?

Possibly. A workplace relationship with a supervisor does not automatically prevent a sexual harassment or retaliation claim. Courts may examine whether the supervisor's authority created pressure to begin or continue the relationship, and whether the employee later experienced retaliation after rejecting advances, ending the relationship, or complaining about the supervisor's conduct.

Can My Boss Be Held Personally Responsible?

Depending on the facts, yes. Under New York State and New York City law, an individual who participated in harassment or aided and abetted unlawful conduct may face personal liability along with the employer.

Call For a FREE Consultation: (866) 229-9441

Supervisor sexual harassment cases often involve more than offensive comments or unwanted advances. They frequently involve workplace power, retaliation, digital evidence, and complicated employment decisions that unfold over months or years.

Phillips & Associates has handled more than 2,000 sexual harassment matters, litigated approximately 2,000 employment cases, and recovered more than $360 million for employees. The firm regularly represents employees in cases involving supervisors, executives, business owners, physicians, law firm partners, and other people who exercise authority over an employee's career.

If your supervisor has sexually harassed you or retaliated after you rejected advances or ended a workplace relationship, contact Phillips & Associates for a free and confidential consultation.

Call (866) 229-9441 or contact us online to speak with a New York City supervisor sexual harassment attorney.