A Harassment Complaint Just Landed: The First 72 Hours for a San Diego Employer

Day one

• Acknowledge the complaint in writing and confirm no retaliation will follow.
• Preserve evidence: issue a hold covering email, chat, badge and access records, schedules, and personnel files.
• Decide interim measures — schedule separation, reporting-line changes, or paid administrative leave — without demoting or moving the complainant, which itself reads as retaliation.
• Choose the investigator, and choose someone with no reporting relationship to either party.

Scope before interviews

Write down what is being investigated. A defined scope keeps the investigation focused, prevents it from becoming a general performance review of the complainant, and makes the eventual findings defensible.

Decide up front whether the investigation is conducted for legal advice under privilege or as an ordinary business investigation. That choice affects what can be shielded later, and it cannot be made retroactively. Where the investigation itself will be used as a defense, expect the privilege to be waived.

Running interviews properly

• Interview the complainant first and in full, then witnesses, then the accused, and give the accused a fair chance to respond to specifics.
• Promise confidentiality to the extent possible — not absolutely, which you cannot deliver.
• Take contemporaneous notes and avoid conclusions inside the notes themselves.
• Do not ask witnesses to keep the investigation secret in terms that would chill protected concerted activity.
• Follow the evidence where it leads, including to conduct nobody complained about.

Findings and closing the loop

Reach a conclusion on each allegation using a preponderance standard, document the reasoning, and take corrective action proportionate to the finding. Then tell the complainant that the investigation concluded and that action was taken, even if the details stay confidential.

Watch the following months closely. Retaliation claims after an unsubstantiated complaint are more common than the original claims and are frequently easier for a plaintiff to prove.

When to use outside counsel

Bring in an outside investigator when the accused is an executive or HR itself, when the allegations involve potential criminal conduct, when multiple complainants are involved, or when litigation looks likely. Rainey Law P.C. conducts and advises on workplace investigations for San Diego employers.