Filing a Workplace Harassment Complaint in Kentucky

Not at the same time. KRS 344.270 provides that the commission shall not take jurisdiction over a claim under the chapter while a claim of the same person seeking relief for the same grievance under KRS 344.450 is pending, and that a state court shall not take jurisdiction while a claim of the same person is pending before the commission. The same section provides that a final determination by a state court or a final order of the commission excludes any other administrative action or proceeding under KRS Chapter 13B by the same person on the same grievance. The text addresses later administrative proceedings, so what a completed agency case does to a later court case is a question to raise with a lawyer before you pick a forum.

For most harassment claims Kentucky reaches lower than federal law. KRS 344.030(2) defines an employer as a person who has eight or more employees within the state in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year, against the fifteen federal Title VII requires. So an employer with eight to fourteen Kentucky employees can face a state harassment claim based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex or age with no federal exposure. The twenty-week element matters for seasonal work, because crossing eight briefly may not be enough.

Because the same definition carries three different numbers. KRS 344.030(2) sets the general threshold at eight employees, but says that except for purposes of determining discrimination based on disability, employer means a person engaged in an industry affecting commerce who has fifteen or more employees, and that except for purposes of determining accommodations for an employee's own limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, employer means a person who has fifteen or more employees. The practical result is that a ten-person Kentucky employer can be liable for sexual or racial harassment under the state act and be outside it for a disability claim entirely.

Yes. KRS 344.030(5)(a) provides that employee does not include an individual employed by his parents, spouse or child, or an individual employed to render services as a domestic in the home of the employer, so household workers are outside the act regardless of anything else. KRS 344.030(5) also provides that neither a franchisee nor a franchisee's employee shall be deemed to be an employee of the franchisor for any purpose under the chapter, which forecloses the argument that a large brand is your employer. Anyone in those categories should ask a Kentucky employment lawyer what else may apply.

Not in the state statute. KRS 344.040 lists race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age forty and over, disability, and smoker or nonsmoker status, and neither sexual orientation nor gender identity nor marital status appears. The local layer is real in Kentucky, though: KRS 344.300 authorizes cities and counties to adopt and enforce ordinances, orders and resolutions prohibiting all forms of discrimination, and KRS 344.310 to 344.350 provide for local human rights commissions with their own enforcement. Check the ordinance for the city or county where you actually work, because coverage, thresholds and deadlines are set locally.

It is, and Kentucky is unusual in this. KRS 344.040(1)(a) makes it an unlawful practice for an employer to discriminate against an individual because the individual is a smoker or nonsmoker, as long as the person complies with any workplace policy concerning smoking. KRS 344.040(1)(d) goes further and makes it unlawful to require as a condition of employment that any employee or applicant abstain from smoking or using tobacco products outside the course of employment. KRS 344.040(2) preserves differences in health plan contribution rates and smoking cessation incentives, and the protection depends on your complying with the workplace smoking policy.