Filing a Workplace Harassment Complaint in Colorado

Reviewed by DocDraft Legal Team - Colorado - Last updated September 15, 2026

Colorado is the rare state where the substance of harassment law, not the calendar, is the reason to read a state page. C.R.S. Section 24-34-400.2(2) records that the general assembly finds the severe or pervasive standard created by courts does not take into account the realities of the workplace or the harm that workplace harassment causes, and that it rejects the severe or pervasive standard for proof of workplace harassment in favor of a standard that prohibits unwelcome harassment. Section 24-34-402(1.3) then supplies the replacement test. Conduct or communication is harassment where it is unwelcome, directed at an individual or group because of protected class membership or perceived membership, subjectively offensive to the person alleging it, and objectively offensive to a reasonable individual who is a member of the same protected class. That last phrase does real work, because the comparator is a reasonable member of your own protected class rather than a generic reasonable person. There is a hard date attached. The Editor's note printed under Sections 24-34-400.2, 24-34-402 and 24-34-408 states that section 7(2) of chapter 389, Senate Bill 23-172, applies to employment practices occurring on or after August 7, 2023. Conduct before that date is not governed by the new standard. On procedure Colorado is conventional. Section 24-34-306(14) bars a civil action in a Colorado district court on a practice prohibited by part 4 without first exhausting the proceedings and remedies available through the Colorado Civil Rights Division. Section 24-34-403 requires a charge to be filed within three hundred days after the alleged discriminatory or unfair employment practice occurred and says that if a charge is not timely filed, it is barred. That 300 day figure comes from House Bill 22-1367, chapter 473, effective August 10, 2022, not from the later harassment act, and it is the same period the EEOC allows in a deferral state, so your state and federal clocks run together rather than months apart. Coverage is the easy part here. Section 24-34-401(3) defines an employer as the state of Colorado or any political subdivision, commission, department, institution or school district of it, and every other person employing persons within the state. There is no employee minimum in that definition at all, so a worker at a two person Colorado company is covered by state law where federal Title VII, which needs fifteen employees, would not reach the employer. If your situation involves assault, threats or stalking, contact emergency services and speak with an attorney.

The Colorado legislature wrote into the statute books that it rejects the severe or pervasive test, and that single sentence changes what a worker here has to prove.

Colorado is the state whose legislature said the quiet part in the statute. Section 24-34-400.2(2)(b) provides that the general assembly rejects the severe or pervasive standard for proof of workplace harassment in favor of a standard that prohibits unwelcome harassment. Section 24-34-402(1.3) replaces it with a test that asks whether unwelcome physical or verbal conduct, or written, pictorial or visual communication, was directed at you because of your protected class, was subjectively offensive to you, and was objectively offensive to a reasonable individual who is a member of the same protected class. The objective half is measured against a reasonable member of your own class, which most summaries of Colorado law leave out.

Relevant Laws

Regional Variances

Suggested Compliance Checklist

Other Colorado guides