Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-1-502

This is the official text of Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-1-502, part of Tennessee’s Code Ann — part of the compiled statutory law of Tennessee, published by the state as "Code Ann." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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Part definitions

Official statutory text

As used in this part: (1) "Abusive conduct" means acts or omissions that would cause a reasonable person, based on the severity, nature, and frequency of the conduct, to believe that an employee was subject to an abusive work environment, such as: (A) Repeated verbal abuse in the workplace, including derogatory remarks, insults, and epithets; (B) Verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a threatening, intimidating, or humiliating nature in the workplace; or (C) The sabotage or undermining of an employee's work performance in the workplace; (2) "Agency" means any department, commission, board, office or other agency of the executive, legislative or judicial branch of state government; (3) "Employee" means an employee of any county, metropolitan government, municipality, or other political subdivision of this state; (4) "Employer" means a private employer and a state or local governmental entity; (5) "Harassment" means two (2) or more instances of contact serving no legitimate purpose directed at an employee, in connection with that person's status as an employee, that a reasonable person would consider alarming, threatening, intimidating, abusive, or emotionally distressing and that does or reasonably could interfere with the performance of the employee's duties; and (6) "Instance of contact" means a direct communication or physical touching. Amended by 2019 Tenn. Acts, ch. 331,s 1, eff. 5/10/2019. Amended by 2019 Tenn. Acts, ch. 214,s 1, eff. 4/23/2019. Added by 2014 Tenn. Acts, ch. 997,s 1, eff. 5/22/2014.
As used in this part:
(1) "Abusive conduct" means acts or omissions that would cause a reasonable person, based on the severity, nature, and frequency of the conduct, to believe that an employee was subject to an abusive work environment, such as: (A) Repeated verbal abuse in the workplace, including derogatory remarks, insults, and epithets; (B) Verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a threatening, intimidating, or humiliating nature in the workplace; or (C) The sabotage or undermining of an employee's work performance in the workplace;
(A) Repeated verbal abuse in the workplace, including derogatory remarks, insults, and epithets;
(B) Verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a threatening, intimidating, or humiliating nature in the workplace; or
(C) The sabotage or undermining of an employee's work performance in the workplace;
(2) "Agency" means any department, commission, board, office or other agency of the executive, legislative or judicial branch of state government;
(3) "Employee" means an employee of any county, metropolitan government, municipality, or other political subdivision of this state;
(4) "Employer" means a private employer and a state or local governmental entity;
(5) "Harassment" means two (2) or more instances of contact serving no legitimate purpose directed at an employee, in connection with that person's status as an employee, that a reasonable person would consider alarming, threatening, intimidating, abusive, or emotionally distressing and that does or reasonably could interfere with the performance of the employee's duties; and
(6) "Instance of contact" means a direct communication or physical touching.
Amended by 2019 Tenn. Acts, ch. 331,s 1, eff. 5/10/2019.
Amended by 2019 Tenn. Acts, ch. 214,s 1, eff. 4/23/2019.
Added by 2014 Tenn. Acts, ch. 997,s 1, eff. 5/22/2014.

Status: in_force

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.