Filing a Workplace Harassment Complaint in Maryland

Not on its own, and this is the trap worth knowing. Md. Code Ann., State Gov't 20-1004(c)(3)(ii) treats a complaint filed with a federal human relations commission as satisfying the Maryland harassment tier only if it was filed within six months, while a filing with a local commission counts if made within two years. So an EEOC-only filing made at month ten does not by itself preserve your Maryland window. If you want the full two years under Maryland law, file with the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights.

It very likely does if your complaint alleges harassment. Md. Code Ann., State Gov't 20-601(d)(1)(i)2.B defines employer, where an employee has filed a complaint alleging harassment, as one that has one or more employees for each working day in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year. The ordinary threshold at 2.A is 15 or more employees, and federal Title VII also needs 15. Note the 20 week requirement, which applies to both branches, and the exclusion at 20-601(d)(3) for bona fide private membership clubs exempt under section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Yes. The lowered threshold is keyed to harassment as defined at Md. Code Ann., State Gov't 20-601(h), which reaches conduct based on race, color, religion, ancestry or national origin, sex, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or military status, and separately includes sexual harassment at 20-601(h)(2). A racial harassment or disability harassment claimant at a small Maryland employer gets the benefit of the same rule. Md. Code Ann., State Gov't 20-606(a)(5) makes engaging in harassment of an employee an unlawful employment practice on its own.

The statute keys it to "the date on which the alleged harassment occurred." It does not say the date you were fired, the date you complained internally, or the date you learned the conduct was unlawful. There is no discovery language in the text, and this guide does not take a position on how a pattern of conduct spread over months is treated, because that is not answered in the statute. Keep a dated log of every incident and ask a Maryland employment lawyer before relying on a later start date.

It ends. Md. Code Ann., State Gov't 20-1013(c) provides that filing the civil action automatically terminates the proceeding pending before the Commission. Because you choose when to file, this is a door you walk through rather than one that closes on you, but it is still a one-way door and worth discussing with a lawyer. There is also an earlier route out under 20-1007: within 30 days after a complaint issued under 20-1006 is served, and only where the Commission has found probable cause and conciliation has failed, either party may elect to have the claim decided in a civil action brought by the Commission on the complainant's behalf.

The Maryland fair employment practices law does not impose one on private employers. The training provisions in the 2019 workplace harassment legislation run to persons granted special access to the State legislative complex and to the form training may take for University System of Maryland employees, not to private workplaces, so the title of that act is misleading on this point. Many Maryland employers train anyway, and a written policy still matters as a record of what you reported and when.