I believe I'm being harassed by my supervisor. Without going into too much detail, he's been rude and obnoxious and has taken away my responsibilities and accounts and given them to his friend. I've talked to HR, which has refused to take any action. I'm not a minority or a woman; can I still file a claim for harassment?

-J.S., New York

Unlawful harassment is a form of discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other federal and state laws. Unwelcome verbal or physical conduct based on race, color, religion, sex (whether or not of a sexual nature), national origin, age (40 and over), disability (mental or physical), sexual orientation, or retaliation (sometimes collectively referred to as "legally protected characteristics") constitutes harassment when: (1) The conduct is sufficiently severe or pervasive to create a hostile work environment; or (2) a supervisor's harassing conduct results in a tangible change in an employee's employment status or benefits. Anyone in the workplace might commit hostile work environment harassment: a manager; a coworker; even a non-employee, such as a contractor, vendor or guest. However, the antidiscrimination statutes are not a general civility code. There is no law against being a lousy boss. Since it doesn't appear that you are in one of the protected classes mentioned above, it seems doubtful you would be able to file a harassment claim based on a violation of Title VII or other antidiscrimination laws. But, there are still other common law causes of action you could consider such as a breach of your employment contract (if, for example, your contract specified your job responsibilities or if it incorporates the firm's internal policies addressing this sort of conduct); or defamation (if, for example, your supervisor is bad-mouthing you to clients). A claim for intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress is also possible but it's difficult to prove unless you can show some physical manifestation of the distress.

I've been with my firm for many years and have several large institutional clients. Recently a new hire in another branch was allowed to make several trades for one of my clients without my knowledge. I discussed this with my supervisor and was told there was nothing I could do, that these things happen sometimes and that the firm will ask the client who it wants to deal with in the future. I've cultivated this relationship over many years and don't think this is right. Is there anything I can do?

-R.M., via email

In my experience, most firms will inform a new hire, before the start date, whether another representative at the firm is already working with one of the new hire's clients. If so, the new hire should be told he cannot place trades for this client unless he works something out with the other rep. In your case, whoever reviewed the new hire's "scrub list" either missed the fact that you were already dealing with this client or just didn't care. Alternatively, it could be that the customer, for whatever reason, decided to deal with this new rep for these particular transactions. If the second scenario is the case, I'm not sure there's much you can do about it since customers have the right to deal with whomever they wish. If the first scenario is the case, you could try speaking with someone higher up in the chain of command to get a better picture of the firm's policy and a commitment on how these situations will be handled in the future. You might see if your firm has an ombudsman who could intervene in working out an amicable solution for both you and the new hire.

ALAN J. FOXMAN, ESQ., is an attorney with Fred Chikovsky & Assoc. in Boca Raton, Fla. His comments are not intended as legal advice.