Filing a Workplace Harassment Complaint in South Carolina

On the face of the statute, the state claim can expire while the file is still open. Section 1-13-90(d)(6) caps the action at one year from the violation or one hundred twenty days from dismissal, whichever occurs earlier, and nothing in the chapter tolls the one year period while the mandatory agency step is running. That is why the same subsection is worth reading for its two escape routes: dismissal is itself one of the triggers that unlocks suit, and the period may be extended by written consent of the respondent. Whether a South Carolina court would apply any equitable doctrine on particular facts is a question for a South Carolina employment lawyer, and it should be asked early rather than after the date passes.

The state route closes, but the federal one may not have. The Commission's own guidance says you have up to 180 days from the date the discriminatory act took place to file with it, and that you may still file if more than 180 days but less than 300 days have passed, in which case your complaint would be transferred to the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for processing. The EEOC Charlotte District Office, which covers South Carolina, states that an individual has 300 days from the date of alleged harm to file a charge with that office against an employer with 15 or more employees. So a South Carolinian at day 200 has lost the state claim and kept the federal one.

No. Section 1-13-90(d)(8) provides that no action may be brought under the chapter if an action alleging essentially the same facts and seeking relief for the same complainant is brought in any federal court, and that any action brought under the chapter shall be promptly dismissed if such a federal action is brought. The same subsection also bars your action where the Commission has already sued on the same charge, and bars the Commission's action where you have. Since filing a federal Title VII suit after an EEOC right to sue notice is the usual path, this is a choice to make deliberately rather than by accident.

South Carolina uses the federal threshold and forbids itself from going further. Section 1-13-30(e) defines employer as any person who has fifteen or more employees for each working day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year, which is the Title VII formula word for word, along with its exclusions for an Indian tribe and a bona fide private membership club other than a labor organization. Section 1-13-100 adds that nothing in the chapter may be construed to create a cause of action against a person not covered by Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, or the Americans with Disabilities Act. A worker at a smaller employer has neither a state nor a federal claim under these statutes.

Not if your employer is a private one. Section 1-13-90 runs two different procedures. Subsection (c) applies to complaints against state agencies and departments and provides for a hearing before a panel of Commissioners, a binding opinion and order, and an appeal route. Subsection (d), which covers private employers and local governments, provides for investigation and conciliation only, and if conciliation fails the matter moves to circuit court, brought either by the Commission or by the complainant. A private sector complainant in South Carolina never receives an administrative adjudication from the agency.

Not in the state statute. Section 1-13-80(A)(1) lists race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin, and disability, and the words sexual orientation and gender identity do not appear anywhere in the South Carolina Human Affairs Law. Protection for that conduct reaches South Carolina workers through federal law and the federal reading of sex discrimination, which means the EEOC route rather than the state one. That makes the federal charge, and its 300 day deadline in South Carolina, the part to calendar carefully in such a case.