Opinion ID: 1388511
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: feha authorizes the commission to award punitive damages up to the statutory maximum for each act of housing discrimination

Text: The other issue presented by this case is the scope of the Commission's authority to award punitive damages. FEHA authorizes the Commission to order the payment of punitive damages in an amount not to exceed one thousand dollars, plus an adjustment for inflation, upon a finding that a respondent has engaged in any unlawful practice as defined by the Act. (§ 12987, subd. (2), italics added.) In this case, the Commission found 35 separate instances in which Walnut Creek Manor's owner and rental manager had violated FEHA by renting to non-African-American applicants while Cannon's application was pending. For these repeated FEHA violations, the Commission awarded Cannon $40,635 in punitive damages, that is, $1,000 for each discriminatory act, plus an adjustment for inflation. The majority has limited that award to $1,000 plus the inflation adjustment, reasoning that the term unlawful practice as used in the statute denotes an entire course of any one form of discriminatory conduct against one particular victim. I disagree. As used in section 12987, unlawful practice means any single act in violation of FEHA. The controlling issue in interpreting the language of any statute is the intent of the Legislature. ( People v. Jeffers (1987) 43 Cal.3d 984, 993 [239 Cal. Rptr. 886, 741 P.2d 1127]; Milligan v. City of Laguna Beach (1983) 34 Cal.3d 829, 831 [196 Cal. Rptr. 38, 670 P.2d 1121].) To determine that intent, we look first to the words of the statute, construing them in context, while harmonizing both internally and with each other, to the extent possible those statutes or statutory sections that pertain to the same subject matter. ( Dyna-Med, Inc. v. Fair Employment & Housing Com. (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1379, 1386-1387 [241 Cal. Rptr. 67, 743 P.2d 1323].) Viewed in isolation, the language of section 12987 is ambiguous on the point at issue. The statute does not expressly provide that the punitive damage limit applies to each distinct act of discrimination, to each separate form of discrimination, or jointly to all discriminatory acts of whatever form. The meaning of ambiguous statutory language should be determined with reference to whole system of law of which it is a part.... ( Travelers Indemnity Co. v. Gillespie (1990) 50 Cal.3d 82, 99-100 [266 Cal. Rptr. 117, 785 P.2d 500].) Therefore, to ascertain the Legislature's intent, I look first to FEHA's other provisions. The term unlawful practice appears in two sections of FEHA in addition to section 12987. Section 12960 authorizes persons who claim to be aggrieved by an alleged unlawful practice to file a verified complaint with the Department, while section 12965, subdivision (a) states that if efforts at conciliation and persuasion fail to eliminate the unlawful practice, the Department can file an accusation. The statutory scheme is best harmonized by interpreting the term unlawful practice as having the same meaning in all three instances. As the majority acknowledges, a single act of discrimination will support the filing of either a complaint under section 12960 or a Department accusation under section 12965. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 269.) Thus, the term unlawful practice in section 12987 should be similarly interpreted as meaning any single act of discrimination. In this way, each unlawful practice sufficient to justify a complaint or accusation also justifies a punitive damage award up to the statutory limit. In interpreting any statute, [t]he object to be achieved and the evil to be prevented are prime considerations in determining legislative intent. ( People v. Jeffers, supra, 43 Cal.3d 984, 997, citing Judson Steel Corp. v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (1978) 22 Cal.3d 658, 669 [150 Cal. Rptr. 250, 586 P.2d 564].) A court should arrive at an interpretation that promotes the general purpose and policy of the law, not one that defeats it. ( Harry Carian Sales v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. (1985) 39 Cal.3d 209, 223 [216 Cal. Rptr. 688, 703 P.2d 27], quoting People v. Centr-O-Mart (1950) 34 Cal.2d 702, 704 [214 P.2d 378].) FEHA itself states that its provisions shall be construed liberally to effectuate its purposes. (§ 12993.) In the housing field, as I have noted, FEHA's purpose is to provide effective remedies which will eliminate such discriminatory [housing] practices. (§ 12920.) This court must therefore liberally construe any ambiguous provision in the manner that best achieves this objective. In general, punitive damage awards serve to punish and through punishment, to deter. ( Dyna-Med, Inc. v. Fair Employment & Housing Com., supra, 43 Cal.3d 1379, 1387.) Punitive damage awards serve FEHA's goal of providing effective remedies to eliminate discriminatory housing practices by deterring such practices. The deterrent effect will be greater if the punitive damage limit is applied separately to each discriminatory act, rather than jointly to a succession of such acts. This construction, therefore, best satisfies the legislative command that FEHA's provisions be liberally construed to achieve the Act's objectives. The majority limits a landlord's potential punitive damage exposure to $1,000 per victim, no matter how many discriminatory acts the landlord commits, so long as the discriminatory acts are of the same type. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 270.) This statutory construction means that a landlord who once discriminates against an applicant has little reason not to continue to do so. Here, for example, the Commission found that the landlord had discriminated against Cannon 35 times by renting to more recent applicants, yet the majority limits the Commission to a single $1,000 award of punitive damages, just as if there had been but a single act of discrimination. This $1,000 award is little punishment for a landlord who has committed as many violations of FEHA as occurred here. As the majority interprets it, section 12987 will neither deter repeated acts of housing discrimination nor advance FEHA's statutory objective. The majority's reading of section 12987 makes the number of victims the dispositive factor in determining the scope of the Commission's authority to award punitive damages. This focus on the number of victims, rather than the culpability of the wrongdoer, is inconsistent with the deterrent purpose of punitive damages. Moreover, an amendment to section 12987 deleting language that linked the $1,000 maximum punitive damage award to the aggrieved person is further indication of legislative intent that the availability of such awards not be dependent on the number of victims. The prior version of section 12987, subdivision (2), authorized the Commission to award punitive damages to the aggrieved person in an amount not to exceed one thousand dollars. (Former § 12987, subd. (2), added by Stats. 1980, ch. 992, § 4, p. 3162.) In 1981, the Legislature amended subdivision (2) of section 12987, deleting the reference to the aggrieved person. (Stats. 1981, ch. 899, § 3, p. 3424.) [A] material change in the phraseology of a legislative enactment is ordinarily viewed as showing an intention on the part of the legislature to change the meaning of the statute. ( McDonough Power Equipment Co. v. Superior Court (1972) 8 Cal.3d 527, 534, fn. 5 [105 Cal. Rptr. 330, 503 P.2d 1338].) The Legislature's deletion of the aggrieved person language from section 12987 is one more indication of legislative intent that the statute's $1,000 limit on an administrative award of punitive damages not depend solely on the number of persons aggrieved by the discrimination. This conclusion is also consistent with the Commission's interpretation of section 12987. In this case, the Commission has interpreted section 12987 to allow an award of punitive damages to a single victim for each wrongful act in violation of FEHA. (See also Dept. Fair Empl. & Hous. v. Green (1986) No. 86-07, FEHC Precedential Decs. 1986-1987, CEB 1, pp. 12, 14].) Courts give great weight to an agency's construction of a statute it is charged with administering ( Highland Ranch v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. (1981) 29 Cal.3d 848, 859 [176 Cal. Rptr. 753, 633 P.2d 949]), and generally will follow that construction unless it is clearly erroneous ( San Mateo City School Dist. v. Public Employment Relations Bd. (1983) 33 Cal.3d 850, 856 [191 Cal. Rptr. 800, 663 P.2d 523]). Here, the Commission's construction of the punitive damage limit as applying to each separate discriminatory act is not plainly erroneous and therefore should be followed by this court. The majority is of the view that its construction of section 12987 is necessary to preserve the constitutionality of the statute because a contrary interpretation would conflict with the judicial powers clause of our state Constitution. (Maj opn., ante, p. 271.) I disagree. Administrative punitive damage awards up to the statutory maximum for each separate act of housing discrimination are reasonably necessary to deter housing discrimination; therefore, they comport with the substantive limitations on administrative exercise of judicial powers. Moreover, as I shall discuss, the majority's treatment of multiple punitive damage awards in relation to the judicial powers clause is fundamentally inconsistent. In McHugh v. Santa Monica Rent Control Bd., supra, 49 Cal.3d at pages 378-379, this court relied on the judicial powers clause to strike down a portion of the Santa Monica rent control ordinance that authorized administrative awards of treble damages. We identified section 12987 as a statute that would not violate judicial powers because the punitive damages it authorized were relatively minor and it set a cap on such awards. ( McHugh v. Santa Monica Rent Control Bd., supra, at p. 378 & fn. 46.) Here, the majority approves multiple punitive damage awards against one landlord, provided each award is payable to a different victim or based on a different form of discrimination. In so doing, the majority necessarily concedes that multiple punitive damage awards made under these circumstances are relatively minor and in an amount capped by statute, and thus not violative of the judicial powers clause as explicated in McHugh v. Santa Monica Rent Control Bd., supra, 49 Cal.3d 348. Yet if multiple punitive damage awards to different victims or to the same victim based on different forms of discrimination are constitutional because they are relatively minor and capped by statute, then under the majority's own logic multiple punitive damage awards to the same victim based on multiple acts of the same type of discrimination should be no less offensive to the judicial powers clause. The majority fails to cover this gap in its constitutional reasoning. In my view, the Commission correctly interpreted section 12987 to authorize an award of up to $1,000 in punitive damages for each separate act of housing discrimination.