Yes, you can sue for being threatened at work, but the person you sue and the theory you use depend on who made the threat and what your employer did about it. The threatener can face criminal charges and a civil suit from you directly. Your employer can face a lawsuit too, but usually only if the threat was tied to discrimination, if the employer knew about the danger and ignored it, or if one of the narrow exceptions to workers’ compensation exclusivity applies. In 2024, workplace violence caused 733 worker fatalities in the United States, including 470 homicides.1Bureau of Labor Statistics. National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries in 2024 The legal system takes threats seriously, and so should you.
Who You Can Sue
Two separate targets, two separate cases. The person who threatened you is exposed to a civil suit for the tort itself — assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation if the threat included false statements about you — and also potentially to criminal prosecution, which the state controls but which you can help start with a police report.
Your employer is a different question. Employers do not automatically become defendants when one employee threatens another. You generally need to show either that the employer knew about the threat and failed to act, that the threat was rooted in discrimination the employer allowed to fester, or that the employer’s own conduct crossed into intentional wrongdoing. Otherwise workers’ compensation stands in the way.
When Workers’ Comp Blocks a Suit Against Your Employer
Workers’ compensation is typically the exclusive remedy for injuries sustained on the job. You collect medical bills and a share of lost wages, and in exchange you give up the right to sue your employer. For threat and violence cases, that tradeoff usually cuts against the employee, because workers’ comp does not cover pain and suffering or punitive damages.
Several exceptions can pull your case out from under the exclusivity rule:
- Intentional torts. If the employer deliberately caused the harm, or was substantially certain an injury would occur, you can sue. An employer who ignores direct warnings about an employee’s imminent violence and lets that person stay on the floor is the classic example.
- Discrimination-based violence. If you were threatened because of your race, sex, religion, or national origin, you can pursue workers’ comp benefits and a separate civil rights claim. The civil rights claim comes from a different body of law and is not displaced by the exclusivity rule.
- Personal animosity unrelated to work. When the violence stems from a private dispute — domestic violence that follows someone to work, for example — the injury is treated as imported into the workplace and may fall outside workers’ comp entirely.
- Breach of a specific security obligation. If the employer contractually promised to maintain security, in a handbook or a collective bargaining agreement, and then failed to do so, that breach can create its own basis for suit.
Psychological injuries add another wrinkle. Coverage for mental health conditions caused by workplace threats varies widely by state, with roughly two-thirds of states providing some form of workers’ compensation for mental health injuries and a handful excluding them altogether. Some states require a physical injury as a trigger; others cover purely psychological trauma from a witnessed or experienced event. Whether your emotional injuries even count under workers’ comp shapes whether a separate civil claim makes sense.
Legal Grounds for Suing Your Employer
Negligence
When an employer knows about a threat and does nothing, the resulting harm can support a negligence claim. The employer owed a duty to maintain a reasonably safe workplace, breached that duty by ignoring a known hazard, and you suffered harm as a result. A related theory, negligent hiring or retention, applies when the employer brought on or kept someone despite knowing that person posed a danger. Failing to run a reasonable background check, or ignoring obvious warning signs after hiring, can support this claim on its own.
Title VII Hostile Work Environment
If the threats are tied to a protected characteristic — race, sex, religion, national origin — you may have a hostile work environment claim under Title VII. The workplace has to be permeated with intimidation, ridicule, or insult severe or pervasive enough to alter the conditions of your employment and create an abusive environment.2U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Harassment A single stray comment rarely qualifies. A pattern of threatening behavior aimed at you because of who you are usually does. The employer has to have known, or should have known, about the harassment and failed to take prompt corrective action.
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
This tort targets conduct so extreme and outrageous it goes beyond all bounds of decency. You need to show the person acted deliberately or with reckless disregard, that the conduct was truly outrageous rather than merely offensive, and that you suffered severe emotional distress. Medical records or counseling documentation strengthens these cases considerably. Courts set the bar high; ordinary workplace rudeness will not clear it, but sustained terrorizing behavior can.
Defamation
If the threats came packaged with false statements that damaged your professional reputation, defamation may be available. You would need to show the statement was false, it was communicated to a third party, and it caused actual harm to your reputation or livelihood. This one is narrower than the others and only fits when the threatening conduct included specific factual falsehoods, not just hostile language.
What Counts as a Threat in the Eyes of the Law
A threat does not require contact or a weapon. Under criminal law, an assault conviction generally requires an intentional act that put another person in reasonable fear of imminent harm, even if no one was actually hurt.3Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Workplace Violence – Overview The U.S. Supreme Court held in 2023 that criminalizing a “true threat” requires at least recklessness, meaning the speaker consciously disregarded a substantial risk that their words would be perceived as threatening violence.4Supreme Court of the United States. Counterman v Colorado A heated remark in the break room may not qualify. Repeated statements a reasonable person would view as threatening likely do.
Context drives the analysis. Courts look at the relationship between the people involved, their history, and the specific circumstances. A vague comment from a stranger reads differently than the same words from a coworker with a documented pattern of aggression.
Threats sent by email, text, or social media open a federal door. Transmitting a threat to injure someone through interstate or foreign commerce is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 875 – Interstate Communications Digital threats also leave a built-in evidence trail, which matters more than most people realize when it comes time to prove your case.
Deadlines That Will End Your Case Before It Starts
The clocks on threat-related claims are short and unforgiving.
If your case involves discrimination, you have to file a charge with the EEOC before you can sue in federal court. The deadline is 180 calendar days from the last incident of harassment, extended to 300 days if a state or local agency enforces a similar anti-discrimination law.6U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits for Filing a Charge Miss it and you lose the federal claim.
Once the EEOC issues a Notice of Right to Sue, you have 90 days to file your lawsuit.7U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing a Lawsuit Ninety days goes fast. This is where a lot of otherwise strong cases die.
Retaliation for a safety complaint has an even tighter window. If you believe your employer punished you for reporting a workplace safety concern, you must file a complaint with the Secretary of Labor within 30 days of the retaliatory action.8Occupational Safety and Health Administration. General Requirements of Section 11(c) of the Act OSHA enforces whistleblower protections under more than 20 federal statutes, with filing deadlines ranging from 30 to 180 days depending on the specific law.9Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA Whistleblower Protection Program
What You Can Recover
A successful civil lawsuit can compensate you for medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, and emotional distress. Where the employer’s conduct was truly egregious, punitive damages may be available on top of compensatory awards.
Title VII, however, puts statutory caps on the combined compensatory and punitive damages you can recover, based on the size of the employer: $50,000 for employers with 15 to 100 employees, $100,000 for 101 to 200, $200,000 for 201 to 500, and $300,000 for employers with more than 500 employees.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 US Code 1981a – Damages in Cases of Intentional Discrimination in Employment Claims brought under other theories, including state tort law and negligence, are not subject to these federal caps, which is one reason it often pays to bring more than one claim.
Money is not the only remedy. Restraining orders or protective orders can prohibit the threatening individual from contacting you or coming near your workplace. Many states offer workplace violence restraining orders that the employer can seek on your behalf. Temporary orders often issue quickly, sometimes the same day, with a full hearing within a few weeks. Fees and duration vary by jurisdiction, and some states waive filing fees when actual violence is alleged.
What to Do Now to Protect a Future Lawsuit
Every legal option that follows depends on the record you build in the first days after the threat.
Start a written log. Record dates, times, locations, exactly what was said or done, and the names of anyone who witnessed it. Save every text, email, voicemail, and photo. If the threat happened verbally without witnesses, write down the words as close to verbatim as you can while your memory is fresh. Screenshot digital messages and forward copies to a personal account you control.
Report the threat internally, through HR, a supervisor, a safety officer, or whatever channel your workplace provides. Put it in writing, even if that means following up a conversation with a short summary email. Two things depend on this. Most claims against your employer require showing the employer knew and failed to act. And employers who receive a written report and do nothing lose most of their defenses later.
If the threat involves potential criminal behavior — assault, stalking, explicit threats of violence — file a police report. Bring your documentation. Even if prosecutors decline to charge, the report itself supports a restraining order application and strengthens a civil claim later.
If the threats connect to your race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability, file a charge with the EEOC within the deadlines above.2U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Harassment You cannot bring a Title VII lawsuit without first going through the EEOC.
Retaliation Protection If You Report
Fear of retaliation is the main reason people stay quiet, and the law addresses it head-on. Title VII makes it illegal for an employer to retaliate against an employee for filing a charge, testifying, assisting, or participating in a discrimination investigation.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 US Code 2000e-3 – Other Unlawful Employment Practices Retaliation covers more than firing. It includes demotion, reassignment to worse duties, or any action that would discourage a reasonable employee from coming forward.
The OSH Act separately bars employers from discharging or discriminating against employees who file safety complaints, report hazards, or participate in OSHA proceedings.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 660 – Penalties If retaliation happens, the 30-day OSHA deadline noted above is the one you have to hit.
Whether you sue the individual, the employer, or both, the case you can bring six months from now is built from what you do this week. Document, report, keep copies, and watch the deadlines.