What if the bully is your manager?
I was in that situation a few years back. This manager was high enough in the company to be able to effect quite a few people (somewhere around 50 as I remember) and constantly made threats, nasty comments, and statements that would have been actionable if they could be proven. Conveniently, however, they were made only behind closed doors in the manager's office. Then negative statements that were either highly exagerated or simply unverified rumor started going into people's reviews.
As an example, one of the members of my team went to the manager's manager in an emergency when the manager was unavailable. The following Monday this person was summarily transferred to another group. (One of the few favors this manager did anybody.)
When a group of us went to HR, an "investigation" was started but by strange coincidence, the person go another job and left the company before it could be completed. When the complainers went to HR for a resolution, we were told that nothing could be done because this person wasn't there for self-defense so the negative reviews would have to stand.
Careers were destroyed by this person and the only result was that they found another, higher-level position at another company.
