Opinion ID: 2567202
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prima Facie Case of Retaliation

Text: Plaintiff claims L'Oreal illegally retaliated against her in violation of Government Code section 12940, subdivision (h) (section 12940(h)), part of the FEHA, which makes it an unlawful employment practice for an employer to discriminate against any person because the person has opposed any practices forbidden under the FEHA. She claims L'Oreal retaliated against her because she opposed Wiswall's order to fire the female sales representative. She alleges this retaliation constituted unlawful discrimination because she reasonably believed the order itself unlawfully discriminated on the basis of sex. But this allegation encounters a problem at the outset. Plaintiff did not tell L'Oreal of her alleged belief. She never told anyone within the company that she believed the order to terminate the salesperson constituted sex discrimination or, indeed, was unlawful for any reason. The majority and I agree on the broad principles applicable to retaliation claims. Lawsuits claiming retaliatory employment termination in violation of CFEHA are analogous to federal `title VII' claims (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.; hereafter title VII), and are evaluated under federal law interpreting title VII cases. ( Flait v. North American Watch Corp. (1992) 3 Cal.App.4th 467, 475-476, 4 Cal.Rptr.2d 522.) To establish a prima facie case of retaliation, the plaintiff must show that he engaged in a protected activity, his employer subjected him to adverse employment action, and there is a causal link between the protected activity and the employer's action. ( Id. at p. 476, 4 Cal.Rptr.2d 522.) As I explain, plaintiff's action founders on the first and third of these requirements; she engaged in no protected activity, and there is no causal link between the employer's action and the nonexistent protected activity. Because of this, I need not consider whether L'Oreal subjected plaintiff to any adverse employment action. We recently explained the need to protect whistleblowers, like plaintiff claims to be. ( Miller v. Department of Corrections (2005) 36 Cal.4th 446, ___, 30 Cal.Rptr.3d 797, 821-822, 115 P.3d 77, 96-98 ( Miller ).) Section 12940(h) aids enforcement of the FEHA and promotes communication and informal dispute resolution in the workplace. ( Miller, supra, at p. ___, 30 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 819, 115 P.3d at p. 94, italics added.) The FEHA's stricture against retaliation serves the salutary purpose of encouraging open communication between employees and employers so that employers can take voluntary steps to remedy FEHA violations [citation], a result that will be achieved only if employees feel free to make complaints without fear of retaliation. The FEHA should be liberally construed to deter employers from taking actions that would discourage employees from bringing complaints that they believe to be well founded. ( Id. at p. ___, 30 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 821, 115 P.3d at pp. 96-97, italics added.) We also explained that the United States Supreme Court recently expressed similar concerns in holding that title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (20 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. (Title IX)) provides the whistleblower with a private right of action for retaliation. ( Id. at p. ___, 30 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 821-822, 115 P.3d at p. 97, citing Jackson v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ. (2005) ___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 1497, 161 L.Ed.2d 361.) These policy concerns are valid. Employees should be able to complain about what they believe to be unlawful employment practices without fear of retaliation. But it makes no sense to extend whistleblower protection to someone, like plaintiff, who did not make any complaint, did not engage in any meaningful communication, did not seek any informal dispute resolution in the workplace, and did nothing to try to cause L'Oreal to take voluntary steps to avoid or remedy a perceived FEHA violation. Although section 12940(h)'s language requires the person seeking its protection to oppose any practices forbidden under the FEHA  which seems to require that the practices actually be forbidden  courts have expanded the statute beyond its language to permit a retaliation claim by an employee who has complained of or opposed conduct that the employee reasonably believes to be discriminatory, even when a court later determines the conduct was not actually prohibited by the FEHA. (Maj. opn., ante, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 445, 116 P.3d at p. 1131, citing Miller, supra, 36 Cal.4th at p. ___, 30 Cal.Rptr.3d at 820, 115 P.3d at 95-96.) I agree with this expansion and the policy behind it. But if we are to interpret the statute as not requiring conduct that was actually illegal but merely conduct the employee believes to be illegal, then surely we must require that the plaintiff communicate this belief to the employer. It makes no sense to hold both that the conduct need not be unlawful and that the plaintiff need not complain of it. A multitude of federal cases interpreting the analogous federal retaliation law supports this conclusion. An oft-cited case is Booker v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co., Inc. (6th Cir.1989) 879 F.2d 1304 ( Booker ). In that case, the plaintiff alleged that he had been illegally demoted due to a letter he had written to the company's human resources department that, he claimed, opposed racial discrimination. The court disagreed that the letter constituted opposition to unlawful discrimination. An examination of the letter indicates that it is not in opposition to a violation of the Act. Booker was not contesting any unlawful employment practice; he was contesting the correctness of a decision made by his employer. ( Id. at p. 1313.) The letter in question did claim the plaintiff was the victim of ethnocism, a word the court could not locate in any dictionary. About this claim, the court said, Assuming that Booker intended discrimination, we hold that a vague charge of discrimination in an internal letter or memorandum is insufficient to constitute opposition to an unlawful employment practice. An employee may not invoke the protections of the Act by making a vague charge of discrimination. Otherwise, every adverse employment decision by an employer would be subject to challenge under either state or federal civil rights legislation simply by an employee inserting a charge of discrimination. ( Ibid. ) Other cases are to similar effect. In order to engage in a protected opposition activity . . ., a plaintiff must make an overt stand against suspected illegal discriminatory action. ( Minnis v. McDonnell Douglas Technical Services Co. (E.D.Mich.2001) 162 F.Supp.2d 718, 739, italics added, citing Booker; see also Maynard v. City of San Jose (9th Cir. 1994) 37 F.3d 1396, 1405 [evidence did not support a retaliation claim when the plaintiff framed his complaint in terms of a violation of the Department's hiring practices, not in terms of racial discrimination]; Allen v. Denver Public School Bd. (10th Cir.1991) 928 F.2d 978, 985 [a grievance was not protected opposition to discrimination when there was nothing on the face of the document to alert the reader that discrimination is being alleged]; Pieszak v. Glendale Adventist Medical Center (C.D.Cal.2000) 112 F.Supp.2d 970, 993-994 [plaintiff did not point to any involvement in a protected activity because her complaining about Lopez' harassment does not mean that she was complaining about sexual harassment]; Reynolds v. Golden Corral Corp. (M.D.Ala.1999) 106 F.Supp.2d 1243, 1252 [If plaintiff intended to complain to Barnes about sexual harassment, she had an obligation to tell him so or, at least, to give him sufficient facts from which he could conclude that plaintiff's problem involved conduct directed at her because of her sex]; id. at p. 1253 [no valid retaliation claim because plaintiff does not claim to have reported the alleged sexual harassment to any of Gibson's superiors other than Barnes, and even as to Barnes, plaintiff did not oppose, discuss or suggest unlawful sex discrimination during that conversation]; id. at p. 1254, citing Booker; Beeck v. Federal Exp. Corp. (D.D.C.2000) 81 F.Supp.2d 48, 55 [no case law suggests that protected `opposition' extends beyond open allegations of discrimination to the sort of stoic, silent endurance plaintiff alleges here]; Primes v. Reno (N.D.Ohio 1998) 999 F.Supp. 1007, 1016, citing Booker [concluding that a vague suggestion of racism is not sufficient to constitute `opposition' under Title VII and cannot form the basis for a retaliation claim]; Crumpton v. St. Vincent's Hosp. (N.D.Ala.1997) 963 F.Supp. 1104, 1119 [In order to be protected activity, plaintiff must present evidence showing that [the defendant's] management knew that her concern or complaints related in some way to race and a claim of being discriminated against on that basis; merely complaining about a supervisor's conduct not sufficient]; Garcia-Paz v. Swift Textiles, Inc. (D.Kan.1995) 873 F.Supp. 547, 559 [the statute does not protect persons who simply champion the cause of an older worker, even if the advocate acts out of an unarticulated belief that the employer is discriminating on the basis of age. Thus, liability will not attach unless the activity in question advances beyond advocacy and into recognizable opposition to an employment practice that the claimant reasonably believes to be unlawful]; id. at p. 560, citing Booker; Aldridge v. Tougaloo College (S.D.Miss.1994) 847 F.Supp. 480, 484 [plaintiff's grievance was not protected expression because it did not protest any form of sex discrimination]; id. at p. 485, citing Booker. ) I agree with the majority that courts should not parse an employee's complaint technically. We do not believe employees should be required to elaborate to their employer on the legal theory underlying the complaints they are making, in order to be protected by the FEHA. ( Miller, supra, 36 Cal.4th at p. ___, 30 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 821, 115 P.3d at p. 96.) I further agree that [a]n employee is not required to use legal terms or buzzwords when opposing discrimination. The court will find opposing activity if the employee's comments, when read in their totality, oppose discrimination. ( Wirtz v. Kansas Farm Bureau Services, Inc. (D.Kan.2003) 274 F.Supp.2d 1198, 1212, and quoted in maj. opn., ante, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 449, 116 P.3d at p. 1134.) The problem here is that plaintiff did not use any words to inform her employer she thought the order was unlawful sex discrimination. Her words, in their totality, only asked for justification; they did not hint at a concern that the personnel order constituted sex discrimination. The court in Garcia-Paz v. Swift Textiles, Inc., supra, 873 F.Supp. 547, discussed how articulate an employee must be in complaining about perceived unlawful employment practices. While some courts have indicated that vague references to unspecified discrimination are not protected, no clear rule has emerged as to the level of specificity required, and the standard employed by most courts is not exacting. [Citations.] [¶] Employees often do not speak with the clarity or precision of lawyers. At the same time, however, employers need not approach every employee's comment as a riddle, puzzling over the possibility that it contains a cloaked complaint of discrimination. But the thrust of inartful, subtle, or circumspect remarks nevertheless may be perfectly clear to the employer, and the Court discerns no evidence that Congress intended to protect only the impudent or articulate. The relevant question, then, is not whether a formal accusation of discrimination is made but whether the employee's communications to the employer sufficiently convey the employee's reasonable concerns that the employer has acted or is acting in an unlawful discriminatory manner. ( Id. at p. 560.) Here, plaintiff's complaint of sex discrimination was not merely inartful or subtle or circumspect, but nonexistent. Although, ironically, as the majority recognizes (maj. opn., ante, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 440-441, 116 P.3d at p. 1127), plaintiff's performance reviews within the company have long and consistently criticized her communication skills, surely she was capable of communicating in some fashion her belief that Wiswall's order was unlawful sex discrimination. She never mentioned to anyone within the company that she felt the order was discriminatory. She never explained, or even alluded to, what she articulated in her declaration  that [t]his was the first time in all of my years as Regional Sales Manager that anybody had ever asked me to make a final employment decision based upon the physical appearance, much less the subjective physical appearance, of an employee. She kept her belief, and all of the reasons she allegedly had for that belief, entirely to herself. [1] The majority claims that plaintiff's statement to Wiswall that she needed justification presents a prima facie case that she complained of unlawful sex discrimination. This statement, however, was not a claim of discrimination at all, much less sex discrimination. As L'Oreal aptly points out, a manager's request for `adequate justification' from a superior could convey reservations about the wisdom or soundness of the superior's directive from a business standpoint  why seek the removal of a salesperson who (the manager believes) is doing a good job? Why needlessly risk antagonizing the important account employing the salesperson? The manager may simply be reluctant to carry out an unpleasant task directed at a person the manager personally likes or respects. Or perhaps she simply thinks the directive is `unfair.' All of these are very logical possibilities that have nothing to do with sex discrimination  or discrimination of any kind. Indeed, plaintiff herself indicates in her declaration she believed the order was a bad business decision because the salesperson in question was a top performer  information that she also apparently kept to herself. Plaintiff's mere request for justification is even further removed from a complaint of discrimination than those found too vague in the cases cited above. She did not come close to making an overt stand against suspected illegal discriminatory action. ( Minnis v. McDonnell Douglas Technical Services Co., supra, 162 F.Supp.2d at p. 739.) Nor did she even give Wiswall, or anyone within L'Oreal, sufficient facts from which he could conclude that plaintiff's problem involved sex discrimination. ( Reynolds v. Golden Corral Corp., supra, 106 F.Supp.2d at p. 1252.) At most, she was contesting the correctness of a decision made by [her] employer, which is insufficient. ( Booker, supra, 879 F.2d at p. 1313.) The majority suggests that the employer should have investigated what plaintiff meant on the off chance that she held some undisclosed belief that the order was unlawful. (Maj. opn., ante, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 449-450, 116 P.3d at p. 1134.) But employers need not approach every employee's comment as a riddle, puzzling over the possibility that it contains a cloaked complaint of discrimination. ( Garcia-Paz v. Swift Textiles, Inc., supra, 873 F.Supp. at p. 560.) The purpose behind providing whistleblowers with special protection against retaliation is to encourage open communication between employees and employers so that employers can take voluntary steps to remedy FEHA violations. . . . ( Miller, supra, 36 Cal.4th at p. ___, 30 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 821, 115 P.3d at p. 96.) This purpose is furthered only by requiring, as the law does, that employees overtly oppose what they believe is unlawful discrimination. Placing the onus on employers to try to find out whether an employee believes an action is discriminatory and for some reason has chosen not to speak out, does not further this purpose. Moreover, plaintiff did not say anything  not even to seek a justification  to anyone within the company other than Wiswall. L'Oreal, her employer, is a large company. The purpose behind the retaliation statute is to encourage internal communication so the employer can avoid unlawful acts or take prompt corrective action. In order to further this purpose, arguably a plaintiff should have to complain to someone within the company other than the person who ordered the suspected unlawful conduct  someone who might be able to judge the matter objectively and take any necessary corrective action. Plaintiff alleges that she said nothing to anyone else within L'Oreal, not even the human resources department, because she did not have confidence in them. But the special protection against retaliation does not extend to the sort of stoic, silent endurance plaintiff alleges here. ( Beeck v. Federal Exp. Corp., supra, 81 F.Supp.2d at p. 55.) The contrast between this case and the cases the majority relies on that do find a prima facie case of protected activity could hardly be greater. In Miller, supra, 36 Cal.4th at page ___, 30 Cal.Rptr.3d at page 819, 115 P.3d at pages 94-95 (see maj. opn., ante, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 448, 116 P.3d at p. 1133), the plaintiffs complained repeatedly to several persons, including a sex harassment advisor and Internal Affairs about the alleged harassment. In Wirtz v. Kansas Farm Bureau Services, Inc., supra, 274 F.Supp.2d at page 1213 (see maj. opn., ante, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 449, 116 P.3d at p. 1134), the plaintiff repeatedly discussed his concerns . . . with his direct supervisor and made three formal complaints to the defendant's management. In Truskoski v. ESPN, Inc. (D.Conn.1993) 823 F.Supp. 1007, 1012 (see maj. opn., ante, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 450, 116 P.3d at p. 1134), the plaintiff's complaint of the disparate impact of a staffing policy had definite overtones of gender bias and discrimination. And in Mathieu v. Norrell Corp. (2004) 115 Cal.App.4th 1174, 1187, 10 Cal.Rptr.3d 52 (see maj. opn., ante, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 450, 116 P.3d at pp. 1134-1135), the plaintiff presented evidence she told Dunn `everything' about [the complained of] conduct and that `such treatment, being directed to her as a [woman], constitutes sexual harassment.' Here, by contrast, plaintiff said nothing that had even an overtone of sex discrimination. I do not doubt that a personnel order might be so blatantly discriminatory  for example, an order to fire all African-American employees  that any employer would know that it was unlawful and would further know that an employee's failure to carry it out was due to the belief (actually knowledge ) that it was discriminatory. This is not that case, and the majority does not appear to claim it is; indeed, the majority stresses that the order need not actually have been discriminatory at all for plaintiff to prevail. (Maj. opn., ante, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 445, 116 P.3d at pp. 1130-1131.) Wiswall ordered the salesperson's termination due to her appearance. Plaintiff has never claimed she believed the order was unlawful discrimination on the basis of appearance (a ground not explicitly covered by the FEHA; see maj. opn., ante, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 446, 116 P.3d at pp. 1131-1132), but instead she claims she believed it was sex discrimination. She based this belief on a chain of reasoning grounded on several facts, which she kept to herself. Whether she was correct or not, the order, by itself, was not so blatantly discriminatory on the basis of sex as to place L'Oreal on notice that plaintiff was opposing an act of sex discrimination. Plaintiff has also shown no causal link between any protected activity and the alleged adverse employment actions. First, as I have explained, she engaged in no protected activity. Second, even if she had done so, no evidence exists that L'Oreal knew she was engaging in such activity. `Essential to a causal link is evidence that the employer was aware that the plaintiff had engaged in the protected activity.' ( Morgan v. Regents of University of California (2000) 88 Cal.App.4th 52, 70, 105 Cal.Rptr.2d 652, quoting Cohen v. Fred Meyer, Inc. (9th Cir.1982) 686 F.2d 793, 796; see also Mulhall v. Ashcroft (6th Cir.2002) 287 F.3d 543, 551 [plaintiff failed to produce any direct or circumstantial evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer that Metcalfe and Ray knew or were aware of his protected activity ].) A person cannot retaliate against someone for activity the person does not know about. To prevail on the claim, plaintiff would have to show that L'Oreal retaliated against [her] because [she] complained of sex discrimination. ( Jackson v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., supra, ___ U.S. at p. ___, 125 S.Ct. at p. 1510.) This she cannot do. Plaintiff does not claim that anyone within L'Oreal other than Wiswall knew of her protected activity, for she said nothing whatever to anyone else. Even as to Wiswall, no evidence, direct or circumstantial, exists that he knew of plaintiff's alleged belief. The reason for this conclusion is simple. Plaintiff kept her belief, and the reasons for it, a secret from her employer.