Earlier this week, the Judiciary Committee (by a 25-16 vote) approved of Senate Bill 132, being labelled by it’s proponents as the “Time’s Up” bill but covers both harassment and discrimination cases. I covered an announcement of this a while back.
As the bill moves closer to consideration now to the state Senate, it’s time for employers to start paying attention to what’s in the bill. The CBIA has expressed concerns about some aspects of the bill.
Here are a few highlights:
- To require employers to provide every employee with information concerning the “illegality of sexual harassment and remedies available to victimes of sexual harassment”.
- To require employers of three or more employees (currently set at 50) to provide two hours of sexual harassment prevention training and with such training being provided not just to supervisory employees, but all employees.
- To eliminate affirmative defenses that employers otherwise have that: “(i) the claim of sexual harassment was properly investigated, immediate corrective action was taken and no act of sexual harassment subsequently occurred, (ii) the claim of sexual harassment was not reported to a respondent prior to the filing of a complaint with the commission, (iii) an employer has a policy of prohibiting sexual harassment or recently trained its employees on sexual harassment in accordance with subdivision (15) of section 46a-54, as amended by this act, or (iv) the sexual harassment was not severe or pervasive.” These defenses would only be allowed to be introduced on the question of damages.
- To prohibit employers from modifying the “conditions of employment” of the employee making the claim of sexual harassment when the employer takes “immediate corrective action”, unless employee agrees in writing to such a modification.
- To allow the CHRO to order the promotion of an employee in response to a claim of discrimination.
- To allow claims of discrimination that occur on or after October 1, 2018 to be subject to a new three-year statute of limitation, instead of the current 180 day requirement.
- To allow punitive damages for discrimination claims to be awarded in some instances.
- To allow lawsuits to be brought two years after the CHRO releases jurisdiction over a discrimination, instead of the 90 day requirement.
There’s more as well, so employers are best advised to review it and talk with their attorneys about the impact that this bill might have on their workplace.
From a procedural perspective, the change in the statute of limitations would be significant.
Take this example: Suppose an alleged discriminatory act took place on May 15, 2019. An employee would then have until (approximately) May 15, 2022 to bring a CHRO charge. The CHRO could investigate the claim for a while — say a year and release jurisdiction on May 15, 2023. The employee could then have two additional years to bring suit in Court — taking it out to May 15, 2025. Add another 18-24 months before a trial date, at best.
Ultimately, this could result in a claim being heard nearly eight years (or more!) after the alleged discrimination took place.
Supervisors may have long since left the company and evidence might not be available anymore for employers to defend themselves. All told, these types of delays were exactly the type of issue that a shorter statute of limitations was designed to prevent. Companies would be at a significant disadvantage in defending themselves, all the while damages continue to accrue.
This bill would also require the CHRO to renegotiate significantly large portions of the worksharing agreement in place with the EEOC.
There is certainly momentum for some type of action here; stay tuned to see what further modifications are made to this bill.
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