Israeli Court Ruling Expands Employers’ Obligations Regarding Third-Party Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
Summary
- The Tel Aviv Regional Labor Court issued a new ruling expanding employers’ obligations regarding sexual harassment in the workplace and stated that employers may be obligated to prevent and address incidents of sexual harassment by customers, patients, or other third parties, even when the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law does not directly apply.
- The court based its ruling on employers’ duty of good faith and the obligation to provide a safe and respectful work environment for employees.
- In this case, the court criticized the employer’s handling of a female employee’s complaint of harassment by a patient, and ruled that the employer’s failures to conduct an effective investigation and provide a satisfactory response constituted a breach of the employer’s obligations to its employee.
- Practical significance for employers: if a workplace exposes employees to customers, patients, or other third parties, we recommend that employers review their procedures, training, and complaint-handling mechanisms to ensure they also adequately address situations not explicitly regulated by law.
The Tel Aviv Regional Labor Court recently ruled that an employer has an obligation to prevent and address incidents of sexual harassment in the workplace committed by third parties, by virtue of the heightened duty of good faith that applies in employment relationships.
The Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law and Regulations apply to sexual harassment within the framework of employment relations involving an employee of the employer or a supervisor on its behalf, even if that supervisor is not an employee of the employer. The provisions of the law also apply to employees of manpower contractors and, in 2025, were expanded to include employees of external service providers and suppliers.
The new ruling addresses another question: What happens when an employee is sexually harassed by someone outside the employment relationship, such as a patient, customer, or other external party?
Background: Sexual Harassment of a Female Employee by a Patient
In this case, a female employee who worked in a hospital’s closed psychiatric ward was sexually, verbally, and physically harassed by a patient in the ward during the course of her work.
The employee reported the incident to various hospital officials and later claimed that her complaint had not been adequately addressed or properly handled. The hospital claimed that the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law did not apply to the incident since the perpetrator was not an employee or supervisor on its behalf.
Labor Court Ruling
The court ruled that, although the provisions of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law cannot be applied directly to harassment committed by a person who is not an employee or supervisor of the employer, this does not release the employer from its general obligations to its employees.
The court ruled that whenever a work environment exposes employees to sexual harassment from third parties, employers may be obligated to implement reasonable measures to prevent such harassment, investigate complaints effectively, and take action to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents. The court based this determination on employers’ duties of good faith and obligations to provide safe and respectful work environments.
In its ruling, the court noted the employer’s failures when handling the specific incident, including:
- failure to properly investigate the employee’s complaint;
- failure to ensure the employer’s sexual harassment prevention officer was effectively involved in handling the incident;
- cursory and inadequate handling of the incident;
- failure to implement dedicated procedures to prevent sexual harassment by patients.
Ultimately, the court ruled that the hospital had breached its duty of good faith toward the employee by failing to properly investigate and handle the incident and ordered it to pay compensation to the employee totaling ILS 75,000, in addition to litigation expenses totaling ILS 15,000.
Practical Implications for Employers
The labor court ruling emphasizes that employers’ obligations to ensure safe work environments are not limited to incidents of sexual harassment by employees or supervisors. Where a workplace exposes employees to harassment by customers, patients, or other third parties, employers should implement a clear policy, adequate preventive measures, and proactive, swift, and sensitive responses to every complaint.
Accordingly, we recommend that employers take the following measures:
- Review existing procedures and consider revisions that also address incidents of harassment by customers, patients, or other third parties.
- Provide relevant training to employees and managers.
- Ensure existing incident reporting and investigation mechanisms enable effective, documented handling of complaints even under circumstances not explicitly regulated by the law.
In particular, we recommend that organizations whose employees are in regular contact with the public, patients, or external suppliers assess whether revisions to compliance procedures, training, and complaint-handling processes are necessary in order to enhance employee protection and reduce legal exposure.
We are at your service to answer any questions about preventing sexual harassment in the workplace.
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Adv. Noemie Amar is an associate in the firm’s Employment Department.
Barnea Jaffa Lande’s Employment Department provides employers with comprehensive legal counsel on all aspects of employment law and labor relations, including safeguarding employees’ privacy, preventing sexual harassment in the workplace, labor law provisions applying during wartime and states of emergency, merger and acquisition transactions, closures of operations, and employment terminations