Filing a Workplace Harassment Complaint in Indiana

Less than most people expect. Ind. Code 22-9-1-6(j)(1) lets the commission restore the complainant's losses but provides that, except in discriminatory practices involving veterans, orders pertaining to employment shall include only wages, salary, or commissions. Ind. Code 22-9-1-17(b) applies the same limit to the court branch, and Ind. Code 22-9-1-17(c) requires that action to be tried by the court without benefit of a jury. If you were never fired and lost no pay, the realistic outcome under this chapter may be an order to stop the conduct rather than money, which is a reason to talk to a lawyer about your federal options too.

Indiana reaches smaller employers than Title VII does. Ind. Code 22-9-1-3(h) defines an employer as the state or any political or civil subdivision and any person employing six or more persons within the state, with no twenty-week counting rule, against the 15 employees Title VII requires. A worker at a company with six to fourteen employees therefore has an Indiana claim and no federal one, and that band is where the state law does most of its work. Below six there is no claim in either system.

Several, and the exclusions are broader than in most states. Ind. Code 22-9-1-3(h) removes from the definition of employer any nonprofit corporation or association organized exclusively for fraternal or religious purposes, any school or educational or charitable religious institution owned or conducted by or affiliated with a church or religious institution, and any exclusively social nonprofit club or association. These are entity-level exclusions, not narrow religious-hiring exemptions. Ind. Code 22-9-1-3(i) separately excludes anyone employed by a parent, spouse or child, or in the domestic service of any person, so household workers are outside the chapter regardless of headcount.

Not under the Indiana Civil Rights Law. Ind. Code 22-9-1-3(l)(1) lists race, religion, color, sex, disability, national origin, ancestry and status as a veteran, and neither sexual orientation nor gender identity appears anywhere in the chapter. That leaves Title VII and its 15-employee threshold, which means the six-to-fourteen band where Indiana normally adds coverage has none for these claims. Some Indiana cities and counties have their own ordinances, so it is worth checking whether the place you work has a local agency and what its ordinance covers.

No. Ind. Code 22-9-1-12.1(d) provides that a person who files a complaint with a local agency may not also file with the civil rights commission concerning any of the matters alleged, and a person who files with the commission may not also file with a local agency. It is a genuine either-or, so the choice has to be made before you file rather than adjusted later. Local agencies also have powers the commission lacks, including the ability under Ind. Code 22-9-1-12.1(c)(9) to institute actions for legal or equitable relief in a circuit or superior court, though Ind. Code 22-9-1-12.1(c)(8) caps local employment damages at lost wages, salaries, commissions or fringe benefits.

It stops. Ind. Code 22-9-1-6(q) requires the commission, upon notice that a complaint is the subject of an action in a federal court, to immediately cease investigation of the complaint and bars it from conducting hearings or issuing findings of fact or orders on it. Ind. Code 22-9-1-18(c) likewise provides that the agency proceeding may not continue after the filing of a civil action. For a worker at an employer with 15 or more employees this is often the right trade, but it is a decision to make deliberately and with advice, because you cannot run both.