When an employer or supervisor requires an employee to engage in sex to keep their job or receive some job benefit like a raise or promotion, that’s quid pro quo harassment. California’s FEHA law (Fair Employment and Housing Act) prohibits quid pro harassment and permits the employee to sue both the employer and the harasser.
See, Fisher v. San Pedro Peninsula Hospital (1989) 214 Cal.App.3d 590, 607. See, CACI 2520.
As one court explained:
“A cause of action for quid pro quo harassment involves the behavior most commonly regarded as sexual harassment, including, e.g., sexual propositions, unwarranted graphic discussion of sexual acts, and commentary on the employee’s body and the sexual uses to which it could be put. To state a cause of action on this theory, it is sufficient to allege that a term of employment was expressly or impliedly conditioned upon acceptance of a supervisor’s unwelcome sexual advances.”
(Mogilefsky v. Superior Court (1993) 20 Cal.App.4th 1409, 1414, internal citations omitted.)