Matt Lauer’s Victims: Why Their Legal Options are Limited

Do the women who have been harassed by Matt Lauer have legal recourse? Taking their allegations as true, their options are limited, perhaps even nil.

Title VII prohibits sex discrimination, including harassment. In general, if a person has a complaint, she must file a charge within 180 calendar days from the day the discrimination took place. That time limit is 300 days if a state or local agency enforces a law that prohibits employment discrimination on the same basis. (New York is such a state, as is NYC.) The allegations appear to be time-barred because the women did not complain on time (I may have missed something that occurred recently).

Lawyers try work-arounds with longer filing periods. A common approach is to sue in tort (a term that simply means a wrong under civil, not criminal, law.)

Let’s suppose he forced a woman to have sex in his office by locking the door on her.

There is a tort of assault and battery. It would clearly apply if the sex act was forced on her. But that tort in New York has a short statute of limitations—one year.

The same is true for the tort of emotional distress. Here, the proof is more demanding but likely met: the victim must show that the behavior is extreme and outrageous and caused emotional or psychological harm. Proof of injury gets tricky in cases where female victims don’t have measurable injuries, such as treatment for anxiety or depression. But again, this has a one year statute of limitations.

Ditto for false imprisonment. That’s another tort. It’s actually very common in sexual harassment cases. The predatory male corners a woman, closes a door on her, or renders her semi-conscious or unconscious. This is false imprisonment. But again, New York as a short statute of limitations. It’s one year.

My conclusion: Unless there are recent incidents and are timely pursued in court—as opposed to media interviews, or internal complaints— Lauer’s victims have no recourse.

Here are three ways to make sexual harassment laws more effective:

1. Increase the statute of limitations at least for Title VII.

2. Make employer strictly liable once they receive a valid complaint and fail to take action to stop the harassment (here, I have in mind complaints from co-workers who have reason to believe that harassment to another worker has occurred). This is not the law today. If a woman fails to use her employer’s complaint system—as is common— the employer is not vicariously liable for her supervisor’s actions (I am assuming that Lauer was in some supervisory role here). In effect, the burden is on the victim to complain.

3. Strengthen anti-retaliation laws. Allow for punitive damages where employers punish women who come forward with valid complaints. Otherwise, the status quo will continue: women will suffer in silence.