Signs of a Toxic Boss vs a Bad One (US)

By David M. · Published 24 August 2026, updated 12 September 2026 · Verified 24 August 2026 · Editorial policy

Applies to the United States: federal law plus the named state and territory provisions. Scope is one person: whether a manager’s conduct is toxic, not whether the workplace is.

Not legal advice. The rules change from state to state, and federal courts do not all read them the same way. No page can cover your own facts, so if a deadline or a decision is close, talk to an employment lawyer where you live.

A bad boss and a toxic boss are not two points on one scale. They are separately named and separately measured patterns of behavior, with different time-courses and different consequences for the person reporting to them. The line between them is not severity, and it is not intent. It is whether hostile conduct toward a person is sustained.

That settles what to call the behavior, not what can be done about it. US employment law does not ask whether a manager is toxic; it asks whether conduct was because of a protected characteristic, and whether the person held the authority that makes an employer automatically answerable. A manager can meet every marker in the literature and still be doing nothing unlawful.

What actually separates a toxic manager from a bad one?

Career-advice pages separate the two by intent: the toxic manager means harm, the bad manager is unskilled. Intent is not observable and cannot go in a log. The literature separates them on countable behavior, using four constructs.

Abusive supervision is the core construct for the hostile manager: “subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact” (Tepper, Academy of Management Journal 43, 178–190, 2000, at p. 178).

Sustained means a single blow-up does not meet the definition; perceptions means the instrument measures the subordinate’s own report, which is why a contemporaneous record matters. That wording is not retrievable from the journal, but is reproduced identically, page number included, by both the Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development and a 2021 systematic review in Frontiers in Communication (6:640908).

Petty tyranny names behaviors. Blake Ashforth’s Petty Tyranny in Organizations (Human Relations 47(7), 755–778, 1994) states, verbatim from the abstract on the publisher’s page: “Preliminary empirical work suggests that tyrannical behaviors include arbitrariness and self-aggrandizement, belittling others, lack of consideration, a forcing style of conflict resolution, discouraging initiative, and noncontingent punishment.” That is six dimensions, which is why “he micromanages,” on its own, is a weak observation.

Destructive leadership is the umbrella term, with a four-type map. Aasland, Skogstad and Einarsen wrote the 2007 Leadership Quarterly article at 18(3), 207–216. A document by the same authors defines it as “repeated or illegal behaviours by a leader, supervisor or manager that violate the legitimate interest of the organisation by undermining … the motivation, well-being or job satisfaction of subordinates” (author document; British spelling original, and no page number, that document’s pagination conflicting with the journal’s).

The Toxic Leadership Scale carries the word itself: Andrew Schmidt’s scale (2008 thesis, 2014 dissertation) has 23 items across five dimensions: Self-Promotion, Abusive Supervision, Unpredictability, Narcissism and Authoritarian Leadership (Hanges Lab, University of Maryland).

Is an absent or hands-off boss just a milder version?

No, and this is what makes the distinction operational. A 2014 study in Zeitschrift für Psychologie 222(4) is titled “The Relative Effects of Constructive, Laissez-Faire, and Tyrannical Leadership on Subordinate Job Satisfaction”. It reports two prospective, representative surveys at six-month and two-year lags: “Tyrannical leadership predicted a decrease in subordinate job satisfaction over a 6-month period, while laissez-faire leadership turned out as the sole predictor of job satisfaction over a 2-year time lag.” The passive manager is not a weaker version of the hostile one; it is a slower one. The publisher’s page disclosed no authors and no sample sizes, so none are stated.

One verified meta-analytic anchor exists on outcomes: Zhang and Liao pooled 119 independent samples totaling 35,239 participants (Asia Pacific Journal of Management 32(4), 959–987, 2015). Other figures in circulation here were checked and left out for lack of a retrievable sample, method or field date. They include a share of the workforce experiencing abusive supervision and an annual dollar cost to employers.

Whether the workplace itself is toxic is a separate question, answered on the signs of a toxic workplace; whether a group is driving it, on workplace mobbing. This page does not address what a manager is trying to achieve. For that, see signs your boss wants you to quit.

Which behaviors count, and how would you write one down?

Each marker below is behavior plus effect, never a claim about what the manager wants, feels or is. A record asserting motive gets contested on the motive.

• Sustained hostile display, counted. Dated instances, not adjectives. Items from the 15-item Abusive Supervision Scale as given in the QIC-WD summary (a secondary source, not the instrument itself) read: “Ridicules me,” “Puts me down in front of others,” “Blames me to save himself/herself embarrassment.”
• Public belittling, not private criticism. Ashforth’s “belittling others” and the item “Puts me down in front of others” turn on who was present. Record names.
• Noncontingent punishment and arbitrariness. Consequences that do not track performance; instruction changed after work began, without notice. Record what was delivered and when, and both instructions verbatim with timestamps. If the manager later denies giving the first instruction, see what workplace gaslighting is and how to keep a record of it.
• Behavior that changes with the audience. “Drastically changes his/her demeanor when his/her supervisor is present”. Record two dated observations in two settings, not a theory.

FIELD 11 - AUTHORITY EXERCISED
09:14 standup. M. Reyes (Ops Manager) said
"I'll put you on a final warning" if the
Q3 file slipped. Reyes signs warnings;
no HR countersignature required.

FIELD 12 - COMPARATOR
Present: R. Nakamura, same title and grade.
Same file, no deadline stated, no warning
mentioned. Nakamura age 27; writer age 58.

FIELD 13 - NOTICE GIVEN
14:20 same day, email to J. Alvarez, HR
Business Partner, citing Policy HR-14 s.3.
Ticket HR-2291 auto-issued 15:02.
No reply after 8 calendar days.

Does the law care whether your boss is toxic?

No, not as such, except for a few named provisions below. In Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, 523 U.S. 75 (1998), a unanimous Court wrote, in the opinion: “Title VII does not prohibit all verbal or physical harassment in the workplace; it is directed only at ‘discriminat[ion] … because of … sex,'” and warned against turning the statute “into a general civility code for the American workplace” (Opinion of the Court). Being managed badly, harshly or coldly is lawful.

What has to be true before conduct becomes unlawful harassment?

Two things: the conduct is because of a protected characteristic (Oncale), and it clears a threshold of seriousness. Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U.S. 17 (1993) states in the opinion that Title VII is violated when a workplace is “permeated with ‘discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult,’ that is ‘sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment'”.

The same opinion gives four factors: “the frequency of the discriminatory conduct; its severity; whether it is physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and whether it unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work performance” (Opinion of the Court). Each is a fact a log captures and an adjective cannot. Note the fourth: the test is interference with work performance, not with feelings.

Who counts as a supervisor, and why does it change everything?

Because it decides who has to prove what. If the harasser is a supervisor, the employer is liable unless it proves a two-part defense, set out below. If not, the employee must prove the employer was careless. Vance v. Ball State University, 570 U.S. 421 (2013) holds, in the opinion: “We hold that an employer may be vicariously liable for an employee’s unlawful harassment only when the employer has empowered that employee to take tangible employment actions against the victim.”

A tangible employment action is “a ‘significant change in employment status, such as hiring, firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or a decision causing a significant change in benefits.'” Where the person lacks that power: “If the harassing employee is the victim’s co-worker, the employer is liable only if it was negligent in controlling working conditions” (Opinion of the Court).

A team lead who assigns your work but cannot touch your job sits on the second branch. That means proving the employer knew or should have known and failed to act, so the dated report becomes the central evidence.

What does the employer’s affirmative defense require of you?

Where the harasser is a supervisor and no tangible employment action followed, the employer can raise a two-part defense. Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (1998), in the opinion: “The defense comprises two necessary elements: (a) that the employer exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior, and (b) that the plaintiff employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer or to avoid harm otherwise.”

And: “No affirmative defense is available, however, when the supervisor’s harassment culminates in a tangible employment action, such as discharge, demotion, or undesirable reassignment” (Opinion of the Court).

Element (b) is the reader’s element, and sets the minimum a complaint must meet: made through the designated procedure, not to a sympathetic colleague; dated and evidenced with a receipt or ticket number; detailed enough to be investigated; and made before resigning. It is also the step people skip.

The June 2016 report of the co-chairs of the EEOC Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, Chai R. Feldblum and Victoria A. Lipnic, summarizes the research it reviewed as showing that “approximately 70% of individuals who experienced harassment never even talked with a supervisor, manager, or union representative,” and that “anywhere from 87% to 94% of individuals did not file a formal complaint” (EEOC; a synthesis of the literature surveyed, not a single survey).

Subject: Report of workplace conduct -
M. Reyes - 12 Jun to 14 Aug

1. This reports conduct by M. Reyes, Ops
Manager, under Policy HR-14, section 3.
Please handle it under that policy and
confirm receipt in writing.

2. On 14 Aug at 09:14, in the team standup,
M. Reyes said, in these words: "I'll put
you on a final warning." Present:
R. Nakamura, T. Okafor.

3. That day M. Reyes required the Q3 file
by 08:00 on 15 Aug, assigned 17:40 the
previous evening. Sixth such instance
since 12 Jun; prior dates below.

4. The 15 Aug audit deadline was then
missed and the Northgate handover was
reassigned.

5. R. Nakamura, same role and grade, was
given the same file with no deadline and
no warning. Nakamura is 27; the writer
is 58.

6. This report makes no claim about
M. Reyes's intentions, motives, state of
mind or health. It reports what was said
and done, and what followed at work.

7. Requested: that assignment deadlines be
issued in writing, with the outcome of
this report confirmed in writing.

Does it help that your boss treats everyone badly?

It hurts. Because Title VII reaches conduct “because of” a protected characteristic, a manager uniformly hostile to everyone may fall outside it. This is the equal-opportunity-harasser doctrine, and the circuit changes the answer. A 2021 survey in the ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law (McLean, 35 ABA J. Lab. & Emp. L. 3) records it applied to dismiss claims without further factual inquiry in the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh and Tenth Circuits, and only with a disproportionate-impact analysis in the Eighth and Ninth. The Seventh Circuit case is Holman v. Indiana, 211 F.3d 399, 402 (7th Cir. 2000). What does not vary: “he is like this with everyone” is a sentence that helps the employer.

Where is workplace bullying actually regulated?

• The two best-known statutes are training mandates, not claims. Cal. Gov. Code § 12950.1 requires employers with five or more employees to train supervisors for two hours and everyone else for one, and defines “abusive conduct” as conduct “with malice, that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive, and unrelated to an employer’s legitimate business interests.” A training failure “shall not in and of itself result in the liability of any employer,” and the section sits in the training part of the Government Code, not among FEHA’s unlawful practices. Utah’s Public Employees’ Healthy Workplace Act reaches public employees only. It defines abusive conduct at § 67-26-102, states at § 67-26-201 that “it is the policy of the state to provide and maintain a work environment free from abusive conduct,” and imposes a duty at § 67-26-301 to “provide biennial training to educate all state executive branch agency employees and supervisors.” A supervisor-training duty is not a cause of action. Note California’s “with malice”: a state of mind no employee can observe, so even that definition is no behavioral checklist.
• Tennessee’s Healthy Workplace Act protects employers, not employees. This one is routinely stated backwards. Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-1-504 is headed “Immunity of employer when policy adopted — Cause of action against employer not created.” An employer adopting the model policy “is immune from suit for any employee’s abusive conduct that results in negligent or intentional infliction of mental anguish,” and “nothing in this section creates a cause of action against an employer who does not adopt the model policy.” Adopting the policy there cuts the employer’s exposure and creates nothing for the employee.
• Puerto Rico is the outlier that does create a claim. Act No. 90 of 7 August 2020, the Act to Prohibit and Prevent Workplace Bullying in Puerto Rico, defines workplace bullying as “malicious, unwanted, repetitive, abusive, biased, unreasonable, and/or willful conduct” involving repeated verbal, written or physical abuse unrelated to legitimate business interests. A person liable “shall be held civilly liable for an amount equal to double the amount of damages caused.” The employee must exhaust the internal procedure, then use alternative dispute resolution, and file within one year (Oficina de Gerencia y Presupuesto, official English text). Note the same problem as California: “malicious” and “willful” put a state of mind in the definition.

The four provisions above differ in what they give an employee.

What about OSHA, or suing for emotional distress?

OSHA reaches less far than readers expect. Its enforcement page states: “There are currently no specific OSHA standards for workplace violence.” The fallback is the General Duty Clause, 29 U.S.C. § 654(a)(1), requiring a workplace “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm,” and a citation requires a feasible method to abate that hazard (OSHA, Workplace Violence: Enforcement). Yelling, humiliation and unreasonable demands are outside it; threats or acts of violence are not.

Intentional infliction of emotional distress is a state-law tort whose elements vary by state, and its threshold sits far above rudeness. Applying the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 46 formulation, the Supreme Court of Texas in GTE Southwest, Inc. v. Bruce, 998 S.W.2d 605 (Tex. 1999) required conduct “so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency,” and held that “insensitive or even rude behavior does not constitute extreme and outrageous conduct.”

What cleared that bar: months of daily profanity, repeatedly charging at employees with clenched fists while screaming, and forced staring sessions of up to 30 minutes (opinion text, third-party host; verify against an official Texas reporter before relying on it). Where a complaint is instead raised with coworkers about working conditions, section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act protects the right “to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection,” in union and non-union private workplaces alike (NLRB).

So what actually follows from which?

The branches go wrong in opposite directions. On Branch A the wrong choice is the complaint procedure: applied to a performance problem it returns a finding of no policy breach, and that finding sits in the file. On Branch B the wrong choice is waiting for the conduct to worsen, since element (b) is assessed on what the employee did with the opportunity available.

If either branch produces a written warning or a performance improvement plan, responding to the document is a separate exercise: see what to do before signing a written warning and what a performance improvement plan actually means. Where the pattern is unequal treatment of a colleague, see favoritism at work. Where the job itself is being narrowed rather than the person criticized, the sequence and its consequences are set out on how to tell if you are being managed out.

When do the general rules not apply?

• The employer is too small for federal law. Title VII reaches employers with fifteen or more employees for each working day in twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding year (42 U.S.C. § 2000e(b)); the ADEA threshold is twenty (29 U.S.C. § 630(b)). State law can be broader: New York covers “all employers within the state” with no numerical threshold (N.Y. Exec. Law § 292(5)), while Michigan (MCL § 37.2201) and Minnesota (Minn. Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 16) reach an employer with one or more. A reader at a nine-person company in Detroit has a route their counterpart in a fifteen-threshold state lacks.
• The boss owns the company. There is no escalation above them, and “the Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defense is unavailable when the supervisor in question is the employer’s proxy or alter ego” (Townsend v. Benjamin Enterprises, Inc., 679 F.3d 41 (2d Cir. 2012)). The EEOC’s litigating position, briefed 27 May 2011, is that strict liability attaches where “the supervisor’s role is more than a mere supervisor and is actually identical to that of the employer” (EEOC brief). Skipping the internal procedure costs less here, but an external dated record still needs to exist.
• Public employees get one extra protection and one trap. A tenured public employee with a property interest in the job is entitled, before termination, to “oral or written notice of the charges against him, an explanation of the employer’s evidence, and an opportunity to present his side of the story” (Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532 (1985)). The trap: “when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes” (Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006)), so complaining as part of the job may carry no constitutional protection.
• Union members have a right at the meeting itself. An employee may request union representation at an investigatory interview they reasonably believe might lead to discipline; the employer may refuse, but then cannot compel them to proceed without representation (NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U.S. 251 (1975)). For its limits in a non-union workplace, see your rights in an HR investigation.
• The reader is themselves a supervisor. The NLRA excludes “any individual employed as a supervisor” from the definition of employee, so section 7 does not reach them. Its section 2(11) definition is also broader than Vance‘s, covering anyone who can “responsibly … direct” others using “independent judgment.” One team lead can therefore be a supervisor under the NLRA, losing concerted-activity protection when organizing a complaint, while not being one under Vance, so the employer escapes vicarious liability.
• The laissez-faire boss leaves no evidence trail. Every documentation technique assumes an act to document, and this harm is made of omissions: unanswered messages, decisions not made, the skipped meeting. Invert the log: record requests made and not answered, with date sent, channel and days elapsed.

What should you do this week?

1. Decide which branch you are on. Sustained hostile conduct directed at a person, or passive failure. Use the construct definitions, not a feeling. If passive failure, stop at step 3.
2. Reconstruct the last 90 days from artifacts you hold, such as calendar entries, sent messages, ticket timestamps and file versions. Add fields 11, 12 and 13 for each incident. Keep the file outside the employer’s systems.
3. Answer the authority question in writing. Can this person hire, fire, promote, refuse to promote, reassign you with significantly different responsibilities, discipline you or change your pay? Establish it from the org chart or the policy, not by assumption.
4. Find the exact policy name and section number covering the conduct, and who receives a report, in what time. Element (b) is measured against that procedure.
5. Send the escalation email through that procedure and keep the receipt. If no acknowledgement arrives, follow up referencing the first email’s date and time.
6. Check the deadlines that do not wait. An EEOC charge must be filed within 180 calendar days, extended to 300 where a state or local agency enforces a parallel law, and is not investigated without a signature (EEOC, How to File a Charge of Employment Discrimination). Confirm your state agency’s deadline, which can differ, and see filing an EEOC charge for what the signature requirement actually means.

Common questions about toxic bosses

What are the signs that your boss wants you to quit?

A different question from whether a boss is toxic, and it has a sequence. Feedback moves into writing, scope shrinks, the standard shifts, formal paper arrives, and an exit gets floated. Each stage tells you how far along the employer already is, which decides what to do this week. The five stages, and what to put in writing at each sets it out in full.

What are some signs that my boss is sabotaging me at work?

Sabotage is covert rather than hostile, which is what makes it hard to name and harder to record. Typical markers: information you needed arriving late or not at all, deadlines set without the resources to meet them, exclusion from meetings where your work is decided, commitments made on your behalf without your knowledge. Each is datable, and a sent, unanswered email timestamps itself.

What are signs you’re not valued at work?

Worth separating from toxic conduct, because the response differs. Being undervalued shows up as stalled progression, exclusion from development, and work reassigned upward without credit. It can be entirely unintentional. Toxic conduct is directed and persists after it is raised. One is a conversation about your trajectory; the other is a record.

Sources

• Tepper, B. J., Academy of Management Journal 43, 178–190 (2000), definition at p. 178: as reproduced by the Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development umbrella summary on abusive supervision
• Frontiers in Communication 6:640908 (2021), systematic review reproducing the same definition
• Ashforth, B., Petty Tyranny in Organizations, Human Relations 47(7), 755–778 (1994): SAGE
• Aasland, M. S., Skogstad, A. & Einarsen, S., destructive leadership definition and four-type typology, author document: AMED; the journal article is The Leadership Quarterly 18(3), 207–216 (2007)
• Schmidt, A., Toxic Leadership Scale, 2008 master’s thesis and 2014 dissertation, University of Maryland: Hanges Lab, University of Maryland
• “The Relative Effects of Constructive, Laissez-Faire, and Tyrannical Leadership on Subordinate Job Satisfaction: Results From Two Prospective and Representative Studies,” Zeitschrift für Psychologie 222(4) (2014), DOI 10.1027/2151-2604/a000189: Hogrefe
• Zhang, Y. & Liao, Z., Asia Pacific Journal of Management 32(4), 959–987 (2015), meta-analysis of 119 independent samples, N = 35,239: Springer
• American Psychiatric Association, Principles of Medical Ethics section 7.3 (adopted 1973), “The Goldwater Rule”
• Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U.S. 75 (1998)
• Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U.S. 17 (1993)
• Vance v. Ball State University, 570 U.S. 421 (2013)
• Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (1998)
• US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Report of the Co-Chairs of the Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace (Feldblum and Lipnic), June 2016
• McLean, “Equal Opportunity Harasser” Doctrine: Flawed, Pernicious, Abrogated, 35 ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law 3 (2021): American Bar Association
• Cal. Gov. Code § 12950.1: FindLaw
• Utah Code § 67-26-102 (Utah Public Employees’ Healthy Workplace Act, definitions): FindLaw
• Utah Code § 67-26-201 (state policy): FindLaw
• Utah Code § 67-26-301 (biennial training duty): FindLaw
• Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-1-504 (immunity of employer when policy adopted; cause of action against employer not created): Justia
• Act No. 90 of 7 August 2020, Act to Prohibit and Prevent Workplace Bullying in Puerto Rico: Oficina de Gerencia y Presupuesto, official English text
• 29 U.S.C. § 654(a)(1) (General Duty Clause), as published in OSHA, Workplace Violence: Enforcement
• GTE Southwest, Inc. v. Bruce, 998 S.W.2d 605 (Tex. 1999): opinion text via third-party host
• National Labor Relations Act, sections 2(3), 2(11) and 7: National Labor Relations Board
• Townsend v. Benjamin Enterprises, Inc., 679 F.3d 41 (2d Cir. 2012): Justia
• US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, appellate brief in Townsend v. Benjamin Enterprises, No. 09-4509-cv(XAP), 27 May 2011
• 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(b) (Title VII, definition of employer): Legal Information Institute
• 29 U.S.C. § 630(b) (ADEA, definition of employer): Legal Information Institute
• N.Y. Exec. Law § 292(5): New York State Senate
• MCL § 37.2201 (Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, definitions): Michigan Legislature
• Minn. Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 16: Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes
• Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532 (1985)
• Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006)
• NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U.S. 251 (1975)
• US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, How to File a Charge of Employment Discrimination

How this page is sourced and maintained

Every factual claim on this page is tied to a named primary document and links to that document rather than to a summary of it. The document may be a statute, a published instrument or paper, an agency’s own published position, or the Opinion of the Court in a decided case. Case holdings are quoted from opinion text rather than from a reporter’s syllabus. This page routes readers to decided cases rather than to agency guidance documents, because guidance can be withdrawn while precedent stands.

Where a source could not be verified to that standard, the claim was left out, and where a wording was retrievable only in a secondary source, that is stated in the sentence that uses it. Two items on this page are known to fall short of the standard and are marked in place: the GTE Southwest opinion text was retrieved from a third-party host rather than an official Texas reporter, and the authors, pagination and sample sizes of the Zeitschrift für Psychologie study were not exposed on the publisher’s page, so none are stated. Figures in wide circulation on this topic were checked and excluded for having no retrievable sample, method or field dates. They include a share of the workforce experiencing abusive supervision, an annual dollar cost of it to employers, and a proportion of employees naming their supervisor as the worst part of the job.

This page is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with anyone. It is written by a publisher, not by a lawyer. Employment law in the United States varies from state to state, and the rules described here differ across the states named here and in the states not named. Those rules include employer-size thresholds, state anti-bullying provisions, the elements of intentional infliction of emotional distress, and the reach of the equal-opportunity-harasser doctrine. Anyone deciding whether to make a formal complaint, resign, or file a charge should consult an employment attorney licensed in their own state before acting.

Review schedule. The status of federal harassment guidance is re-verified quarterly, next due November 2026, because this page relies on precedent by design. The state and territory bullying provisions are re-verified annually after each legislative session, next due August 2027. Those are Cal. Gov. Code § 12950.1, Utah Code §§ 67-26-102, 67-26-201 and 67-26-301, Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-1-504, and Puerto Rico Act 90-2020. The equal-opportunity-harasser circuit map is drawn from a 2021 survey and is re-verified annually, next due August 2027, since a circuit can move. The EEOC charge deadlines and filing requirements are re-verified every six months, next due February 2027. The Supreme Court authorities and the construct papers are evergreen and are not on a review cycle.