Yes, your boss may be bullying you if their behavior is repeated, targeted, and meant to intimidate, humiliate, or undermine you at work. Here's what is surprising to many people I speak with. Bullying alone isn't always illegal under California or federal law, but it may cross over into unlawful discrimination, harassment, or retaliation in some cases.

I am going to walk you through the warning signs that separate bad management from workplace bullying, when that bullying becomes illegal in California, how to document what's happening, and when you should talk to a Los Angeles employment lawyer before things escalate further.

Here is what you need to know when trying to figure out if your boss is bullying you.

• What Workplace Bullying by a Boss Actually Looks Like
• How Do I Know If I'm Being Bullied at Work?
• What Is Considered Bullying in the Workplace (and What Isn't)?
• Is Workplace Bullying Illegal in California?
• How to Deal With a Bully Boss at Work (Strategic Steps)
• How to Prove Your Boss Is Bullying You
• What Real California Workplace Bullying Cases Can Teach Us
• Your Rights and Options If Your Boss Is Bullying You in California
• Getting Help When Workplace Bullying Becomes Illegal in California
• Frequently Asked Questions

Key Takeaways

• California law offers stronger worker protections than federal law alone, especially under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA)
• Bullying becomes illegal when it's based on protected characteristics like race, gender, disability, age over 40, or religion
• Documentation can make or break a legal claim, so keeping records matters from day one
• Internal complaints can trigger retaliation if not handled carefully, which is one of the biggest mistakes I see in real cases

What Workplace Bullying by a Boss Actually Looks Like

Workplace bullying is different from tough management or performance-based criticism. That is an important distinction because not every difficult boss is breaking the law. With that said, there are many employees who are enduring illegal harassment without knowing they have legal options. What I have seen in real cases is that bullying can escalates quietly, wearing you down over time, until the damage is already done. By then, you may have lost sleep, your performance can suffer, and you might be facing discipline or termination. This can be a stressful situation. The good news is that California employees have more legal protections than workers in a number of other states. Knowing when bullying crosses into illegal conduct can help you protect your job, your health, and your rights.

Common Bullying Behaviors

These are patterns I have seen in cases involving hostile supervisors:

• Singling you out for criticism while treating other employees more kindly for the same or worse conduct
• Public humiliation or sarcasm that is designed to embarrass you in front of coworkers or clients
• Setting impossible deadlines that sets you up for failure, especially if other employees get reasonable timelines
• Withholding information that is needed to do your job, then blaming you when tasks are not completed correctly
• Threats, intimidation, or yelling that create a hostile atmosphere and make you dread going to work
• Retaliation after complaints such as difficult assignments, exclusion from meetings, or negative performance reviews that don't match your actual work

As an employment lawyer with 29 years of experience, I can tell you that bullying can start with subtle isolation before escalating into open hostility. A boss might stop inviting you to important meetings, leave you off email chains, or give credit for your work to someone else. These early signs are easy to overlook or ignore, but they can continue to get worse over time.

Bullying vs. Tough Management

Not every demanding boss is a bully. There are things your boss can't legally do, but knowing what is and isn't illegal is key.  Here's how to tell the difference:

Tough Management	Workplace Bullying
Applies rules consistently across all employees	Targets one employee or a small group
Performance-based feedback tied to job requirements	Personal attacks unrelated to work performance
Temporary pressure during busy periods or projects	Repeated pattern over weeks or months
Business-related decisions that serve company goals	Intimidating or degrading behavior that serves no legitimate purpose

A tough boss might push everyone hard during a product launch or busy season. That boss is tough on everyone and isn't targeting a single person. A bullying boss might create obstacles that are designed to make you fail or cause you to quit.

How Do I Know If I'm Being Bullied at Work?

I have received this question more than once during the free consultations we offer. An employee may have a gut feeling something is wrong but are not sure whether they're experiencing actual bullying or just dealing with a difficult work environment. Here is checklist that can help.

Self-Assessment Checklist

• Ask yourself these questions about your boss's behavior:
• Is the behavior repeated? One bad day or disagreement isn't bullying, but a pattern over weeks or months could be.
• Are you being singled out? If your boss treats other employees differently for the same conduct, that's a red flag.
• Is the conduct humiliating or intimidating? Does your boss's behavior feel designed to degrade you rather than improve your performance?
• Has it affected your health, performance, or reputation? Are you losing sleep, feeling anxious, or noticing your work quality decline because of how your boss treats you?
• Does it feel personal rather than job-related? Is the criticism about you as a person rather than specific work issues that could be fixed?

What I see in real cases is that employees dismiss early warning signs until retaliation or termination occurs. By that point, the stress has taken a toll on their health and their documented performance may have suffered, which makes building a legal case harder. If you're checking multiple boxes on this list, you need to start documenting immediately, even if you're not ready to take formal action yet.

What Is Considered Bullying in the Workplace (and What Isn't)?

Understanding what actually qualifies as workplace bullying helps you evaluate your situation accurately and decide what steps to take next.

Behaviors Commonly Considered Bullying

Workplace bullying includes repeated, targeted behaviors like verbal abuse, public humiliation, deliberate exclusion, sabotaging work, or threats that serve no legitimate business purpose. The following is a list of actions that typically cross the line from tough management into bullying territory:

• Verbal abuse including mocking your appearance, intelligence, accent, or personal life, or yelling at you in a way that serves no business purpose
• Social exclusion like deliberately leaving you out of work events, meetings where your input is needed, or team communications
• Sabotaging work by withholding resources, changing deadlines without notice, or undermining your projects to make you look incompetent
• Threats tied to job security such as constant warnings that you're about to be fired, demoted, or written up, especially when your performance doesn't warrant those threats

Conduct That Is Usually Not Bullying

Not every uncomfortable workplace situation qualifies as bullying. Normal management activities can include:

• Legitimate performance reviews that document actual performance issues with specific examples and give you a chance to improve
• One-time disagreements or isolated incidents where tempers flare during stressful situations
• Enforcing policies uniformly across all employees, even if those policies feel strict or inconvenient
• Making lawful business decisions like restructuring your department, changing your schedule, or assigning you different tasks within your job description

An important difference is consistency and intent. A boss enforcing attendance policies on everyone isn't bullying. A boss who suddenly enforces minor rules only against you after you complained about discrimination could be retaliating, which is illegal. I have more information about retaliation you can read by going to my article on what is retaliation.

Is Workplace Bullying Illegal in California?

Workplace bullying alone isn't illegal in California, but it becomes illegal when it's based on protected characteristics like race, gender, disability, age over 40, religion, sexual orientation, or other categories protected under California FEHA and federal law, or when it constitutes retaliation for protected activity. This is where the legal analysis is important. The answer can depend on why your boss is bullying you and if their conduct violates a specific state or federal law.

The Hard Truth: Bullying Alone Isn't Always Illegal

In California there isn't a standalone law that makes general workplace bullying illegal. If you have to deal with a toxic boss that is terrible to everyone equally, or if they're targeting you for reasons that are unrelated to protected characteristics, you might not have a legal claim even though the behavior is unethical and creates a toxic work environment. That can be frustrating, but unfortunately, it's the current state of the law.

When Bullying Crosses the Line into Illegal Conduct

Bullying becomes illegal when it's based on your membership in a protected class or when it constitutes retaliation for a protected activity. California law protects more categories than federal law does, which gives you additional options.

If Bullying Is Based On…	It May Violate
Race, color, national origin, or ancestry	Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and California FEHA
Sex, gender, gender identity, or gender expression	Title VII, California FEHA (stronger protections)
Pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions	Pregnancy Discrimination Act and California FEHA
Disability or medical condition	Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California FEHA
Age (40 and over)	Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and California FEHA
Religion or religious creed	Title VII and California FEHA
Sexual orientation	California FEHA (no federal protection)
Marital status	California FEHA (no federal protection)
Military or veteran status	California FEHA and federal USERRA
Genetic information	Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) and California FEHA
Taking protected leave or reporting illegal activity	California Labor Code and whistleblower protections

What I see in real situations is that employees don't always recognize the connection between their protected status and the bullying they're experiencing. A pregnant employee might think her boss is just being difficult, when in reality, the timing and nature of the hostility could suggest pregnancy discrimination. An older employee over 40 years old might assume the bullying is personal, when it could actually be age-based discrimination and illegal.

Laws and Agencies That Apply

Several laws and enforcement agencies protect California employees from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation:

• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces federal anti-discrimination laws including Title VII, the ADA, the ADEA, and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act
• California Civil Rights Department (CRD) formerly known as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), enforces the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA)
• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin
• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits disability discrimination and requires reasonable accommodations
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) protects employees 40 and older from age-based discrimination
• Pregnancy Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions
• California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) provides broader protections than federal law, covering more categories and applying to smaller employers (5 or more employees instead of 15)

California law often provides broader protection than federal law alone. FEHA covers employers with 5 or more employees, while most federal laws require 15 or more. FEHA also protects categories like sexual orientation and marital status that have no federal equivalent. This means California employees frequently have legal claims even when federal law wouldn't help them.

How to Deal with a Bully Boss at Work (Strategic Steps)

If you're dealing with a boss who is bullying you at work, how you respond matters. Taking the wrong steps can weaken your legal position or possibly trigger retaliation that makes your situation worse.

Step-by-Step Strategy I Recommend to Clients

Here's the approach I walk clients through when they're dealing with workplace bullying:

1. Document everything immediately. Write down dates, times, locations, what was said or done, who witnessed it, and how it affected you. Save emails, texts, Slack messages, and any other written communications. Take screenshots if needed. The more detailed your documentation, the stronger your position later.
2. Review your employee handbook and company policies. Look for anti-harassment policies, complaint procedures, and any language about respectful workplace conduct. Understanding your company's stated policies helps you frame complaints effectively and shows you followed proper procedures if you end up in litigation.
3. Avoid emotional confrontations. I know it's hard, but responding with anger or confrontation rarely helps and can be used against you later. Keep your communications professional and factual, even when your boss doesn't extend you the same courtesy.
4. Report internally with caution. In California, you're often required to give your employer a chance to address the problem before filing an external complaint or lawsuit. That said, internal complaints can trigger retaliation if not handled strategically. Consider talking to a Los Angeles retaliation lawyer before filing an internal complaint so you understand the risks and how to protect yourself.
5. Speak with an employment lawyer early. Many employees wait until after they're fired or constructively discharged to talk to a lawyer, but getting advice earlier gives you more options. An attorney can help you evaluate whether the bullying is illegal, how to document it properly, and whether filing a complaint with the CRD or EEOC makes sense in your situation.

What I often fear for employees is that internal complaints might trigger retaliation if not handled strategically. HR works for the company, not for you. While many HR professionals genuinely want to address workplace problems, their primary duty is protecting the company from liability. That means they might take steps that minimize legal risk to the employer even if those steps don't actually fix your situation or might make it worse for you personally.

How to Prove Your Boss Is Bullying You

If you decide to file a complaint or pursue legal action against your employer, you'll need evidence that supports your claims. California employment law requires proof, not just your word against your boss's word.

Evidence That Strengthens a Case

Building a strong case can typically include multiple types of documentation:

• Emails, texts, Slack messages, or other written communications that show discriminatory language, threats, or hostile behavior. Direct evidence is best, but circumstantial evidence showing a pattern can work too.
• Performance reviews showing inconsistency between your actual work and your evaluations, especially if your reviews were positive before you engaged in protected activity or after your boss learned about your protected status.
• Witness statements from coworkers who saw or heard the bullying behavior. Witnesses don't have to be on your side, they just need to be willing to tell the truth about what they observed.
• Medical or stress-related documentation showing the impact the bullying has had on your health. Doctor's notes, therapy records, or even text messages to friends and family discussing stress, anxiety, or physical symptoms can be relevant.
• Timeline showing escalation that connects the bullying to protected activity or to your boss learning about your protected status. If your boss's behavior changed after you announced your pregnancy, requested disability accommodation, or complained about discrimination, that timing matters.

Proof Mistakes Employees Make

There is a right and a wrong way to collect evidence for your claim. Doing it wrong can seriously weaken an otherwise strong case. Here are some tactics to avoid:

• Recording conversations illegally. California is a two-party consent state, which means you cannot record a conversation unless everyone involved consents. Secret recordings are not only inadmissible in court, they can also subject you to criminal penalties and civil liability.
• Waiting too long to document. Memory fades fast. What feels burned into your brain right after an incident becomes fuzzy within days or weeks. Document incidents immediately while the details are fresh.
• Trusting HR to fix it without documentation. Some employees make verbal complaints to HR but never follow up in writing or keep their own records of what was reported. If the company later claims you never complained, you need proof that you did.
• Deleting communications or evidence. Keep everything, even if it's embarrassing or shows you in a less than perfect light. Employees sometimes delete messages where they responded emotionally to their boss's bullying, but those messages provide context and show the real-time impact of the harassment.
• Only documenting major incidents. Small incidents matter too because they establish a pattern. The time your boss rolled their eyes at you in a meeting might seem trivial, but when combined with dozens of other examples of disrespectful treatment, it paints a picture of ongoing hostility.

What Real California Workplace Bullying Cases Can Teach Us

Workplace bullying and harassment cases continue to affect victims in different ways, but certain patterns can be found in many of these cases.

Pattern of escalation. Bullying rarely starts at maximum intensity. Instead, a boss might begin with subtle exclusion or passive-aggressive comments, then gradually increases the hostility over weeks or months. The employee keeps hoping things will improve, but the behavior only gets worse. By the time the employee seeks legal help, the situation has deteriorated to open hostility, impossible performance expectations, or threats of termination.

Retaliation after complaints. An employee who complains about discrimination or harassment, either to HR or to a government agency is likely trying to solve a problem in good faith. Unfortunately, the bullying behavior that could follow can be transparent retaliation. The employee suddenly receives their first negative performance review despite years of good evaluations. They're excluded from projects. Their schedule gets changed to inconvenient times. Their boss documents minor mistakes but ignores the same behavior from other employees. California law prohibits this kind of retaliation, and it can form the basis for a legal claim.

Bullying used to force resignation. Some employers might use bullying as a way of getting someone to quit without having to fire them. They make the work environment to encourage them to leave. This is called constructive discharge, and under California law, it can be treated the same as a termination if the working conditions were so severe that a reasonable person would have felt compelled to resign.

Protected class overlap employees didn't recognize. Many employees don't realize their protected status is relevant until we discuss their situation in detail. A woman dealing with a hostile male boss might frame it as a personality conflict when it's actually sex-based harassment violations. An employee with anxiety or depression might not identify as disabled under the law, but California FEHA protects mental health conditions that limit major life activities. An employee who mentioned their religion casually months ago might not connect that information to their boss's subsequent hostility. Part of my job is identifying these connections and helping clients understand the legal significance of facts they thought were irrelevant.

Your Rights and Options If Your Boss Is Bullying You in California

If your boss's bullying behavior crosses into illegal discrimination, harassment, or retaliation, California law gives you several options for protecting your rights and seeking remedies:

• Internal complaint through your company's established procedures, which may be required before pursuing external claims and can sometimes resolve the issue if your employer takes proper action
• CRD or EEOC filing with the California Civil Rights Department or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which investigates discrimination and harassment complaints and can result in settlements, findings, or right-to-sue letters
• Legal claim for damages including lost wages, emotional distress, and in some cases punitive damages if your employer's conduct was especially egregious
• Negotiated exit or settlement that protects your interests while allowing you to leave a toxic situation with severance pay, positive references, and preserved unemployment benefits

Which option makes sense depends on your goals, the strength of your evidence, whether you want to keep your job, and the risks of retaliation. An experienced Los Angeles employment lawyer can help you evaluate your specific situation and choose the strategy most likely to achieve what you need.

Getting Help When Workplace Bullying Becomes Illegal in California

Waiting too long to address workplace bullying is one of the most common mistakes I see. By the time many employees contact me, they've already been fired or their health has deteriorated to the point where continuing to work becomes impossible. While California gives you more time to file claims than federal law does, evidence gets harder to gather as time passes, witnesses' memories fade, and employers have more opportunity to build a paper trail justifying their actions. If your boss's behavior is repeated, targeted, and based on your protected status or in retaliation for protected activity, you have legal options under California's strong employment protections.

I handle workplace bullying cases that cross into illegal discrimination, harassment, and retaliation throughout California. If what you're experiencing sounds familiar, you don't have to figure this out alone. I offer free consultations where we can discuss your specific situation, evaluate whether your employer's conduct violates California or federal law, and talk through your options for protecting your job and your rights. Workplace bullying cases that I take on are handled on a contingency basis, which means you don't pay unless we recover compensation for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know if I'm being bullied at work?

You're likely experiencing workplace bullying if your boss repeatedly singles you out for criticism, humiliates you publicly, sets you up to fail, withholds necessary information, or retaliates after you raise concerns. The behavior should be persistent rather than isolated incidents.

What is considered bullying in the workplace?

Workplace bullying includes verbal abuse, threats, intimidation, public humiliation, deliberate exclusion, sabotaging your work, or creating impossible expectations specifically for you. The behavior is typically repeated, targeted, and serves no legitimate business purpose.

How do you deal with a bully boss at work?

Start documenting every incident with dates, details, and witnesses, then review your company's complaint procedures and consider reporting the behavior internally if it's safe to do so. Talk to a California employment lawyer before taking formal action to understand your options and protect yourself from retaliation.

How do you prove your boss is bullying you?

Strong evidence includes written communications showing hostile behavior, performance reviews that contradict your actual work quality, witness statements, medical documentation of stress or health impacts, and a timeline connecting the bullying to protected activity. Keep detailed contemporaneous notes of every incident.

Is my boss allowed to yell at me?

California law doesn't prohibit yelling by itself, but yelling becomes illegal when it's based on protected characteristics like race or gender, when it's severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment, or when it constitutes retaliation for protected activity. Context and frequency matter.

Can I sue my employer for workplace bullying in California?

You can sue if the bullying is based on a protected characteristic (race, gender, disability, age over 40, etc.) or constitutes retaliation for protected activity like complaining about discrimination or taking protected leave. General bullying with no protected basis typically isn't actionable under current California law.

What should I do if HR ignores my bullying complaint?

If HR doesn't address your complaint, document their lack of response and consider filing a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) or EEOC if the bullying involves discrimination or retaliation. You may also have a legal claim for failure to prevent harassment or retaliation for making the complaint.

How long do I have to file a complaint about workplace bullying in California?

For discrimination or harassment claims, you typically have three years to file with the California Civil Rights Department under FEHA, which is longer than the federal deadline. However, waiting reduces your options and makes evidence harder to gather, so act quickly once you recognize illegal conduct.