Opinion ID: 2633435
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Continuing Violation Doctrine and the FEHA

Text: Richards urges us in essence to adopt the broader course of conduct continuing violation theory employed by the Ninth Circuit and other courts as discussed above. CH2M Hill contends that Richards's broad interpretation of the continuing violation doctrine is contrary to the language of section 12960, which, as stated, prohibits a complaint from being filed after the expiration of one year from the date upon which the alleged unlawful practice occurred. Further, the statute makes only two exceptions: a maximum 90-day extension when the claimant first becomes aware of the facts of the alleged practice after the expiration of the limitations period, and a maximum one-year extension when the claimant misidentifies the employer. CH2M Hill argues that to extend the continuing violation doctrine beyond the well-established equitable tolling rule would be contrary to the plain language of the statute. CH2M Hill's statutory argument begs the question whether an unlawful practice within the meaning of section 12960 includes a course of conduct, such as a continuing failure to reasonably accommodate a disabled employee. We considered the meaning of the term unlawful practice under the FEHA in Walnut Creek Manor v. Fair Employment & Housing Com. (1991) 54 Cal.3d 245, 267-273, 284 Cal.Rptr. 718, 814 P.2d 704 ( Walnut Creek Manor) . There, we construed section 12987, which authorized a payment of punitive damages up to a statutory maximum of $1,000 (as adjusted for inflation) for every unlawful practice of housing discrimination under section 12955. The owner of an apartment building passed over a Black applicant for apartments in favor of non-Black applicants 35 times during the relevant period. The Fair Employment and Housing Commission awarded the complainant $1,000 for each of the 35 instances of discrimination, but we held that only a single $1,000 award was warranted. The key to our inquiry was the meaning of the term unlawful practice. As we stated, [t]he term . . . is unambiguous. As both lay and legal dictionaries state, the term `practice' means a course of conduct, i.e., `to do or perform often, customarily, or habitually; to make a practice of (Webster's New Internat. Diet. [(2d ed.1958)] p.1937, col. 3); `[repeated or customary action; habitual performance; a succession of acts of similar kind; custom; usage' (Black's Law Diet. [(6th ed.1990)] p. 1172, col. 1). Given the plain meaning of the term, we conclude that in refusing to rent to [the complainant] on the basis of race, respondents committed a single `unlawful practice' within the meaning of the statute. ( Walnut Creek Manor, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 269, 284 Cal.Rptr. 718, 814 P.2d 704, italics added.) We further clarified that [o]ur conclusion that respondents are liable for only one punitive damages award does not mean that a single `act' of discrimination is not a violation of the act or cannot support an accusation and finding of an `unlawful practice.' The case law is to the contrary. [Citations.] In every case the issue simply is whether the act or acts complained of suffice to show a discriminatory practice in violation of the statute. [Citations.] We merely hold that, for the purposes of the authorized remedies, multiple acts of discrimination against the same complainant on the same unlawful basis establish only one unlawful practice. ( Walnut Creek Manor, supra, 54 Cal.3d at pp. 269-270, 284 Cal.Rptr. 718, 814 P.2d 704.) CH2M Hill correctly argues that Walnut Creek Manor decided the term unlawful practice in a different context. But it does not follow, as the company further argues, that the case is inapposite. Our holding in Walnut Creek Manor undercuts CH2M Hill's contention that Richards's more expansive interpretation of the continuing violation doctrine is inconsistent with the language of the FEHA. At the very least, the term unlawful practice, in the context of the statute of limitations, is ambiguous. CH2M Hill stresses the discrete nature of each of its actions, e.g., the failure to fix the wheelchair ramp, the failure to adjust the elevator, the delay in transferring Richards to the Sacramento office, each with its own separate circumstances and different termination date. But Richards's characterization of CH2M Hill's failure to reasonably accommodate her disability over a five-year period as part of a single course of conduct-informed by management's mistaken belief that her MS was a preexisting condition and that she was trying to milk the companyis at least equally plausible and equally consistent with the meaning of the term unlawful practice. Because the plain language of the statute by itself does not definitively determine the proper scope of the continuing violation doctrine, we turn to the overall purpose of the FEHA to determine which interpretation of that doctrine best serves its legislative objectives. We begin with section 12993, subdivision (a), which states that the provisions of the FEHA shall be construed liberally for the accomplishment of the purposes thereof. This liberal construction extends to interpretations of the FEHA's statute of limitations: In order to carry out the purpose of the FEHA to safeguard the employee's right to hold employment without experiencing discrimination, the limitations period set out in the FEHA should be interpreted so as to promote the resolution of potentially meritorious claims on the merits. ( Romano v. Rockwell Internal Inc. (1996) 14 Cal.4th 479, 493-94, 59 Cal.Rptr.2d 20, 926 P.2d 1114 ( Romano) . ) Romano also concluded that it is contrary to the purposes of the FEHA to interpret its statute of limitations to encourage premature litigation at the expense of informal conciliation. We held that the statute of limitations on a FEHA claim for discriminatory termination does not begin to run at the point at which an employee is notified of the termination, but rather when the termination actually occurs. One of the reasons for our holding was that a contrary rule would promote premature and potentially destructive claims, in that the employee would be required to institute a complaint with the Department while he or she still was employed, thus seeking a remedy for a harm that had not yet occurred. . . . [S]uch a rule would reduce sharply any chance of conciliation between employer and employee and draw the Department into investigations that might have been avoided through informal conciliation. [Citation.] Such a rule also would place upon the courts of this state the burden of prematurely adjudicating claims that a termination in violation of the FEHA has occurred. ( Romano, supra, 14 Cal.4th at pp. 494-495, 59 Cal.Rptr.2d 20, 926 P.2d 1114.) [4] Similarly, in Mullins v. Rockwell Internal Corp. (1997) 15 Cal.4th 731, 63 Cal. Rptr.2d 636, 936 P.2d 1246 ( Mullins) , a non-FEHA breach of contract case, we held that the statute of limitations action for constructive discharge does not commence when the employee's working conditions become intolerable, but rather when the employee resigns. We stated: As a practical matter, a rule requiring a lawsuit to be filed as soon as intolerable conditions begin would interfere with informal conciliation in the workplace. The filing of a lawsuit not only would stifle the parties' efforts to resolve differences informally; it would in most cases prompt the employee to resign at the earliest date to avoid the awkwardness of maintaining employment while pursuing litigation against his or her employer. The statute of limitations should not force the employee to institute premature legal proceedings, whether at the time the employer announces an intention to fire the employee, or at the time the employer begins to coerce a resignation by creating or knowingly permitting intolerable working conditions. ( Id. at p. 741, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 636, 936 P.2d 1246.) As in Romano and Mullins, we do not believe the FEHA statute of limitations should be interpreted to give a disabled employee engaged in the process of seeking reasonable workplace accommodation or ending disability harassment two unappealing choices: on the one hand resigning and bringing legal action soon after the first signs that her rights have been violated, or on the other hand attempting to persist in the informal accommodation process and risk forfeiture of the right to bring such an action altogether. Nor, as we have recognized, is the third choiceretaining employment while bringing formal legal action against the employera viable option for many employees. (See Mullins, supra, 15 Cal.4th at p. 741, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 636, 936 P.2d 1246.) In light of the legislative directive that the FEHA be liberally construed to safeguard the employee's right to hold employment without experiencing discrimination ( Romano, supra, 14 Cal.4th at pp. 493-494, 59 Cal.Rptr.2d 20, 926 P.2d 1114), section 12960 should not be interpreted to impose serious practical difficulties on an employee's ability to vindicate this right through litigation if it can be reasonably interpreted otherwise. Indeed, to hold that the statute of limitations begins to run at the first notice that an employee's rights have been violated would create the following incongruity: Under Mullins, an employee faced with discrimination or harassment that rises to the level of a constructive discharge would not have to take formal legal action until a year after resignation, giving him or her ample time for informal conciliation, but an employee confronted with lesser forms of harassment or discrimination would need to observe a strict one-year deadline from the time of the first unlawful employer activity. Of course, an employee confronted with such unlawful activity will generally not know whether it will eventually rise to the level of a constructive discharge. Therefore, the employee will be encouraged to take legal action before the informal conciliation process has run its course. Such a rule would effectively nullify our holding in Mullins. There is particularly good reason to view the failure over time to reasonably accommodate a disabled employee as a single course of conduct. As the federal regulations implementing the duty of reasonable accommodation in the Americans with Disabilities Act (42 U.S.C. § 12111 et seq.) make clear, [t]o determine the appropriate reasonable accommodation it may be necessary for the [employer] to initiate an informal, interactive process with the disabled employee. (29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(o )(3) (2000).) The appropriate reasonable accommodation is best determined through a flexible, interactive process that involves both the employer and the [employee] with a disability. (29 C.F.R. Appen. to 1630, Interpretive Guidance on Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, foil. § 1630.9, Process of Determining the Appropriate Reasonable Accommodation (2000).) Thus, reasonable accommodation is often an ongoing process rather than a single action. As this case well illustrates, this process may have many facets and take a number of different forms. As with harassment, an instance of an employer's failure to accommodate that in isolation may seem trivial can assume greater significance and constitute a greater injury when viewed as one of a series of such failures. Thus, as discussed, courts applying the Berry test to the area of reasonable accommodation, as well as courts applying a broader test, have found a continuing violation for the entire course of the employer's unlawful conduct. ( Lewis v. Board of Trustees of Alabama State University, supra, 874 F.Supp. at p. 1304; Bodiford v. State of Alabama, supra, 854 F.Supp. at p. 891; Goodman v. Boeing Co., supra, 75 Wash. App. 60, 877 P.2d 703; Martini v. Boeing Co., supra, 945 P.2d at p. 254.) We believe that to interpret the FEHA statute of limitations in a way that does not short-circuit the reasonable accommodation process is consistent with both the letter and the spirit of the law. CH2M Hill objects that allowing employees to delay filing a complaint as long as they are seeking accommodation allows employees to control the date the action accrues, to the severe disadvantage of the employer. Such concern is overstated. As we said in Mullins in the context of constructive discharge: Rockwell objects that if the statute of limitations runs from the date of actual termination of employment pursuant to a constructive discharge, the employee will control the limitations period, because it is up to the employee to decide when to leave his or her employment. . . . If the employee controls the date on which the statute of limitations begins to run, Rockwell argues, employers will live in ignorance of an impending lawsuit until memories have faded and evidence is difficult to gather. . . . [¶] . . . [¶] Rockwell's concern to avoid vesting employees with sole control over the commencement of the statute of limitations period . . . is misplaced. . . . The essence of constructive discharge is that it is a termination of employment secured by the employer through indirect means. The employer remains in control in that he or she coerces the employee's resignation. . . . Further, the employer, who has created or permitted the persistence of known intolerable conditions, should not be able to complain of delay when the employee retains employment in the hope that conditions will improve or that informal conciliation may succeed. ( Mullins, supra, 15 Cal.4th at pp. 739-740, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 636, 936 P.2d 1246, fn. omitted.) Similarly, the employer that creates or permits a persistent pattern of harassment or failure to reasonably accommodate that makes its working conditions unfavorable to the employee, even if such pattern or failure does not rise to the level of constructive discharge, cannot complain of delay when the employee retains employment in hopes that informal conciliation will succeed. On the other hand, we find merit in CH2M Hill's argument that permitting an employee indefinitely to delay the filing of a lawsuit based on the employer's failure to reasonably accommodate disability or on disability harassment would be contrary to the FEHA's statute of limitations and potentially prejudicial to the employer. When the hope that conditions will improve or that informal conciliation may succeed ( Mullins, supra, 15 Cal.4th at p. 740, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 636, 936 P.2d 1246) is unreasonable, as when an employer makes clear that it will not further accommodate an employee, justification for delay in taking formal legal action no longer exists. If the employer has made clear in word and deed that the employee's attempted further reasonable accommodation is futile, then the employee is on notice that litigation, not informal conciliation, is the only alternative for the vindication of his or her rights. Barring a constructive discharge, it is at that point the statute of limitations for the violation begins to run. Accordingly, we adopt a modified version of the Berry test. As in Berry, we hold that an employer's persistent failure to reasonably accommodate a disability, or to eliminate a hostile work environment targeting a disabled employee, is a continuing violation if the employer's unlawful actions are (1) sufficiently similar in kind recognizing, as this case illustrates, that similar kinds of unlawful employer conduct, such as acts of harassment or failures to reasonably accommodate disability, may take a number of different forms (see Fielder v. UAL Corp., supra, 218 F.3d at pp. 987-988.); (2) have occurred with reasonable frequency; (3) and have not acquired a degree of permanence. ( Berry, supra, 715 F.2d at p. 981.) But consistent with our case law and with the statutory objectives of the FEHA, we further hold that permanence in the context of an ongoing process of accommodation of disability, or ongoing disability harassment, should properly be understood to mean the following: that an employer's statements and actions make clear to a reasonable employee that any further efforts at informal conciliation to obtain reasonable accommodation or end harassment will be futile. Thus, when an employer engages in a continuing course of unlawful conduct under the FEHA by refusing reasonable accommodation of a disabled employee or engaging in disability harassment, and this course of conduct does not constitute a constructive discharge, the statute of limitations begins to run not necessarily when the employee first believes that his or her rights may have been violated, but rather, either when the course of conduct is brought to an end, as by the employer's cessation of such conduct or by the employee's resignation, or when the employee is on notice that further efforts to end the unlawful conduct will be in vain. Accordingly, an employer who is confronted with an employee seeking accommodation of disability or relief from disability harassment may assert control over its legal relationship with the employee either by accommodating the employee's requests, or by making clear to the employee in a definitive manner that it will not be granting any such requests, thereby commencing the running of the statute of limitations.