Opinion ID: 776162
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plaintiff's filing of discrimination charges

Text: 3 Plaintiff, a 49-year old white female police officer, awoke one morning in April 1997 with heavy bleeding and subsequently collapsed while responding to a radio call in the course of her duties working at the Lahaina station of the Maui Police Department. Two years prior, Plaintiff had been diagnosed with a low platelet disorder called idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura (ITP) and as a result had been assigned to light duty, including a primary assignment to reorganize and maintain the Department's long-neglected evidence room. Plaintiff's collapse followed an altercation with her supervisor, Sergeant Kenneth Kikuchi, with whom her relationship had so deteriorated that she felt unable to request relief from the call. Plaintiff was subsequently ordered by Captain Robert Tam Ho to write a memorandum (known as a to-from) detailing the stressors that had led to her collapse. In the to-from, Plaintiff claimed that subsequent to her assignment to the evidence room she had become the victim of repeated acts of harassment and discrimination. 1 That same week, on the captain's orders, Kikuchi was transferred to another shift; eventually, he was disciplined and left the police force. 4 In November 1997, Plaintiff filed a Charge of Discrimination with the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission (HCRC). This filing also triggered the administrative review process for her federal discrimination claims. Plaintiff checked boxes on the charge form and in the pre-complaint questionnaire indicating discrimination and harassment based on race, color, and sex. On the pre-complaint questionnaire, Plaintiff was asked to include examples of discrimination. She stated that I am referred to as `Haole' and given the finger at work. I am `iced-out' by fellow officers and this continues. 2 On the charge form, Plaintiff alleged that she was being subjected to harassment because of my race (Caucasian) and in retaliation for my opposing the discriminatory harassment.  Plaintiff further specified that she had been verbally harassed by Sergeant Kikuchi, and thereby subjected to a hostile and intimidating work environment.In addition, she contended that after her memorandum to Captain Tam Ho, she was subjected to retaliation and further harassment. 5 The EEOC and HCRC issued Plaintiff a right-to-sue letter without investigating her claims. Plaintiff originally filed suit in state court, claiming federal and state violations of race and sex discrimination laws (including racial and sexual harassment), unlawful retaliation, violations of the state whistleblower statute, and infliction of emotional distress. Her action was later removed to federal court. Karl Sakamoto, an employee of the HCRC, filed a declaration with the district court stating that Complainant's Right to Sue was intended to afford her a lawsuit involving harassment on the protected basis of race, color, and sex as indicated on the Pre-Complaint Questionnaire . . . and the [charge]. Nevertheless, the district court dismissed Plaintiff's federal and state statutory sexual harassment claims prior to trial, on the ground that she had waived them by failing to raise them adequately in her charge. The district court did permit her to proceed with a Hawaii common law sexual harassment claim, though such a claim had never been pleaded in Plaintiff's complaint. 6