Tort liability for sexual harassment

Sexual harassment conducts such as patting, pinching, constant brushing or touching an inappropriate area of another person's body, making sexually related comments, jokes and graphic drawing, degrading comments on one’s appearance, displaying sexually suggestive pictures, amongst others, are e...

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Main Authors: Sardar Baig, Farheen Baig, Ali Mohamed, Ashgar Ali
Format: Conference or Workshop Item
Language:English
Published: 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://irep.iium.edu.my/43371/
http://irep.iium.edu.my/43371/
http://irep.iium.edu.my/43371/1/tort_liability_for.pdf
id iium-43371
recordtype eprints
spelling iium-433712018-05-21T06:46:29Z http://irep.iium.edu.my/43371/ Tort liability for sexual harassment Sardar Baig, Farheen Baig Ali Mohamed, Ashgar Ali K Law (General) Sexual harassment conducts such as patting, pinching, constant brushing or touching an inappropriate area of another person's body, making sexually related comments, jokes and graphic drawing, degrading comments on one’s appearance, displaying sexually suggestive pictures, amongst others, are examples where the honour and dignity of an employee is violated. Such conducts if goes unchecked, would create ‘intimidating, hostile and offensive work environment which can adversely affect the industrial relations climate in the organisation’. In most cases, the victims get annoyed, angry and even embarrassed by the unwanted sexual attention, as it belittles their persons. The aggrieved worker may experience emotional trauma, anxiety, nervousness, depression and feeling of low self-esteem. Further, it may also affect the employee's morale and job performance such as difficulty in concentrating on their job. An employer may avoid liability if they exercised reasonable care to prevent or correct promptly any harassing behaviour. If a co-worker is involved, the employer is generally liable if it knew or should have known of the misconduct, unless it can show that it took immediate and appropriate corrective action. Further, a failure to respond to bona fide complaints of sexual harassment would constitute a breach of the implied trust and confidence term. In the aforesaid breach, the aggrieved employee may walk out of her job and claim constructive dismissal. This paper would explore the possible cause of action in tort against the assailant for general and specific damages for the alleged assault and battery arising from the unwelcomed incidents of sexual harassment. 2015 Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://irep.iium.edu.my/43371/1/tort_liability_for.pdf Sardar Baig, Farheen Baig and Ali Mohamed, Ashgar Ali (2015) Tort liability for sexual harassment. In: 4th International Conference on Law & Society (ICLAS IV) 2015 , 10th-11th May 2015, Auditorium, Academic Building (UniSZA), Kuala Trengganu. https://www.unisza.edu.my/iclas2015/index.php?option=com_content&view=featured
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Local University
institution International Islamic University Malaysia
building IIUM Repository
collection Online Access
language English
topic K Law (General)
spellingShingle K Law (General)
Sardar Baig, Farheen Baig
Ali Mohamed, Ashgar Ali
Tort liability for sexual harassment
description Sexual harassment conducts such as patting, pinching, constant brushing or touching an inappropriate area of another person's body, making sexually related comments, jokes and graphic drawing, degrading comments on one’s appearance, displaying sexually suggestive pictures, amongst others, are examples where the honour and dignity of an employee is violated. Such conducts if goes unchecked, would create ‘intimidating, hostile and offensive work environment which can adversely affect the industrial relations climate in the organisation’. In most cases, the victims get annoyed, angry and even embarrassed by the unwanted sexual attention, as it belittles their persons. The aggrieved worker may experience emotional trauma, anxiety, nervousness, depression and feeling of low self-esteem. Further, it may also affect the employee's morale and job performance such as difficulty in concentrating on their job. An employer may avoid liability if they exercised reasonable care to prevent or correct promptly any harassing behaviour. If a co-worker is involved, the employer is generally liable if it knew or should have known of the misconduct, unless it can show that it took immediate and appropriate corrective action. Further, a failure to respond to bona fide complaints of sexual harassment would constitute a breach of the implied trust and confidence term. In the aforesaid breach, the aggrieved employee may walk out of her job and claim constructive dismissal. This paper would explore the possible cause of action in tort against the assailant for general and specific damages for the alleged assault and battery arising from the unwelcomed incidents of sexual harassment.
format Conference or Workshop Item
author Sardar Baig, Farheen Baig
Ali Mohamed, Ashgar Ali
author_facet Sardar Baig, Farheen Baig
Ali Mohamed, Ashgar Ali
author_sort Sardar Baig, Farheen Baig
title Tort liability for sexual harassment
title_short Tort liability for sexual harassment
title_full Tort liability for sexual harassment
title_fullStr Tort liability for sexual harassment
title_full_unstemmed Tort liability for sexual harassment
title_sort tort liability for sexual harassment
publishDate 2015
url http://irep.iium.edu.my/43371/
http://irep.iium.edu.my/43371/
http://irep.iium.edu.my/43371/1/tort_liability_for.pdf
first_indexed 2023-09-18T21:01:47Z
last_indexed 2023-09-18T21:01:47Z
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