Sexual harassment is one of the most distressing events that can occur in a person’s life. A sexual harassment lawyer can help you justice for the harm you suffered. However, as with any legal case, you’ll need proper evidence to build a convincing case and get a favorable outcome. Here are some examples of the evidence that can be useful resources in a sexual harassment case.
Ask a Sexual Harassment Lawyer: What Evidence Do I Need to Build a Case?
Witness Testimonies
Having people to corroborate your story can be useful in proving any legal case, and this also holds true in sexual harassment cases. This can provide a backup to your account of events to add some more weight to the accusations you bring to your case. Your account backed up by witnesses affirming the story will be difficult for your harasser to deny.
Colleagues at the job site are perhaps the first people that you should consider when gathering witness testimony for your sexual harassment case. Since they would have been present at the workplace, they will be able to provide their own accounts of any harassment they witnessed. Acting quickly to secure witness testimony is important as you want an account from the witness while the events are still fresh in their memory.
Communications Records
Sometimes, harassment takes place in a way that isn’t clearly recorded. However, one of the most valuable resources that you can provide for sexual harassment lawyers in Kansas City when building your case is documentation of the communication where the harassment took place. This provides concrete evidence of the unlawful behavior that occurred.
More communication is done in the digital space than ever before, which means that many inter-office communications do have an easily traceable paper trail. If harassment took place over email or through a messaging platform, for example, records of the communications should be relatively easy to obtain. Recordings of phone calls or in-person conversations are other examples of this type of evidence, so long as they are acquired in a way consistent with applicable laws.
Documentation of the Incident Being Reported
In the best-case scenario, sexual harassment can be reported to your employer and dealt with properly without a lawsuit involved. However, even if your employer didn’t properly follow through on your complaint, it doesn’t mean your report was for nothing. It can now be used as evidence to support your sexual harassment case and get you the justice that you deserve.
Showing that there is documented evidence of you reporting the case prior to court proceedings beginning is a great way to show the court the severity of the issue. The report should be as detailed as possible so that the events described can be compared to the accused harasser’s version of the story. For this reason, ensuring that any sexual harassment you report is properly recorded at the time of the report is vital.
Employer’s Sexual Harassment Policy
Nearly every workplace has a policy that clearly defines what is considered sexual harassment and lays out the punishments that result from failing to adhere to the policy. Of course, the existence of that policy doesn’t guarantee that either the employer themselves or every employee on the team will follow it. However, the policy can still be helpful in your case if you experienced sexual harassment at your place of work.
Having the policy at hand removes any ability for the person who harassed you to claim ignorance of the fact that their behavior was unacceptable. It can also serve as evidence that the proper action wasn’t taken by your employer once the behavior came to light. Both of these factors can be beneficial in achieving a favorable outcome for your case.
Notes Logging the Harassment
If you don’t have evidence of the harassment that took place, it could end up being a case of your word against the word of your harasser. Unfortunately, even if harassment may very well have taken place, your word alone is unlikely to be convincing enough for the evidence you need. That makes any written records of the harassment that took place an invaluable resource in your case.
While it can be difficult to process ongoing harassment, being mindful enough to keep notes on exactly what is said will be helpful to your case later. This can let you create a much more thorough picture of what occurred than what you would be able to recall from memory. This high level of detail in your reporting will be viewed favorably by the court, giving your case a better chance of success.
Using these and other forms of evidence, you can paint a convincing picture of the harm and distress you suffered as a result of sexual harassment so that the legal system can right the wrong. The quicker you get in contact with a lawyer experienced with sexual harassment law cases and get the process underway, the more likely strong evidence will be available.
