Divided Appellate Court Reverses Employer's Summary Judgment
Posted by Christopher M. Robertson
Hammond v. County of Los Angeles illustrates that an employer's success at the appellate court level can be just as dependent on the luck of the draw as at the trial court level. Specifically, in that case the dissenting justice had a completely different view of what constitutes an adverse employment action and sufficient evidence of discrimination than the two justices who reversed the trial court's order granting the employer's motion for summary judgment.
To be actionable under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), the discriminatory or retaliatory adverse employment action must materially affect the terms, conditions or privileges of employment, and must have occurred during the one year preceding the filing of the DFEH complaint. The majority opinion in Hammond found that a reduction in teaching assignments for the plaintiff, a nursing instructor, was sufficient to constitute an adverse employment action, and although that reduction began before the applicable statute of limitations period, such an adverse employment action was not time-barred because it continued into the applicable statute of limitations period. The dissenting justice, on the other hand, rejected the majority's contention that the reduction in teaching assignments constituted an adverse employment action because it relegated the plaintiff to "some undefined, but lesser, status," and criticized the majority opinion for "essentially allowing an infinite period of limitations."
The majority opinion cited the following as evidence of discrimination: (1) the other three nurse instructors were not in the plaintiff's protected category, (2) some of the plaintiff's teaching assignments were given to the other nurse instructors, and (3) comments made by the decision-maker that three other employees in the plaintiff's protected category were "dumb." The dissenting justice discounted such evidence because: (1) there was no evidence that anyone in the plaintiff's protected category had applied for, or was discouraged from applying for, the two additional nurse instructor positions, (2) the plaintiff's teaching assignments were reduced when two additional nurse instructors were hired, and (3) the "derogatory remarks about three specific people other than the plaintiff, with no context whatsoever, is not 'evidence supporting a rational inference that intentional discrimination, on grounds prohibited by the statute, was the true cause of the employer's action.'"
In sum, the application of the facts of a particular case to the FEHA is subject to different judicial interpretations, even at the appellate level, something that all employers would be well advised to keep in mind when faced with FEHA-related claims. If you have any questions regarding the Hammond decision, please contact us directly.