Opinion ID: 1275413
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Distinction Between Discrimination and Harassment

Text: The Janken court noted the FEHA's differing treatment of harassment and discrimination. It conclude[d] that the Legislature's differential treatment of harassment and discrimination is based on the fundamental distinction between harassment as a type of conduct not necessary to a supervisor's job performance, and business or personnel management decisionswhich might later be considered discriminatoryas inherently necessary to performance of a supervisor's job. ( Janken, supra, 46 Cal.App.4th at pp. 62-63, 53 Cal.Rptr.2d 741.) The court noted that harassment consists of a type of conduct not necessary for performance of a supervisory job. Instead, harassment consiste of conduct outside the scope of necessary job performance, conduct presumably engaged in for personal gratification, because of meanness or bigotry, or for other personal motives. Harassment is not conduct of a type necessary for management of the employer's business or performance of the supervisory employee's job. (Cf. Lisa M. v. Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital (1995) 12 Cal.4th 291, 301, 48 Cal.Rptr.2d 510, 907 P.2d 358 [sexual assault not motivated by desire to serve employer's interest]; Farmers Ins. Group v. County of Santa Clara (1995) 11 Cal.4th 992, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 478, 906 P.2d 440 [sexual harassment by deputy sheriff not within scope of employment].) Discrimination claims, by contrast, arise out of the performance of necessary personnel management duties. While harassment is not a type of conduct necessary to personnel management, making decisions is a type of conduct essential to personnel management. While it is possible to avoid making personnel decisions on a prohibited discriminatory basis, it is not possible either to avoid making personnel decisions or to prevent the claim that those decisions were discriminatory. Courts have employed the concept of delegable authority as a test to distinguish conduct actionable as discrimination from conduct actionable as harassment We adopt this approach to find that the exercise of personnel management authority properly delegated by an employer to a supervisory employee might result in discrimination, but not in harassment. (See Birkbeck v. Marvel Lighting Corp. (4th Cir.1994) 30 F.3d 507, 510 and fn. 1 [distinguishing `personnel decisions of a plainly delegable character' from harassment]; and Stephens v. Kay Management Co., Inc. (E.D.Va.1995) 907 F.Supp. 169, 171, 173 [no personal liability of individual supervisors for `employment-related decisions' or ` personnel decisions of a plainly delegable character`].) Making a personnel decision is conduct of a type fundamentally different from the type of conduct that constitutes harassment. Harassment claims are based on a type of conduct that is avoidable and unnecessary to job performance. No supervisory employee needs to use slurs or derogatory drawings, to physically interfere with freedom of movement, to engage in unwanted sexual advances, etc. in order to carry out the legitimate objectives of personnel management. Every supervisory employee can insulate himself or herself from claims of harassment by refraining from such conduct. An individual supervisory employee cannot, however, refrain from engaging in the type of conduct which could later give rise to a discrimination claim. Making personnel decisions is an inherent and unavoidable part of the supervisory function. Without making personnel decisions, a supervisory employee simply cannot perform his or her job duties. We conclude, therefore, that the Legislature intended that commonly necessary personnel management actions such as hiring and firing, job or project assignments, office or work station assignments, promotion or demotion, performance evaluations, the provision of support, the assignment or non-assignment of supervisory functions, deciding who will and who will not attend meetings, deciding who will be laid off, and the like, do not come within the meaning of harassment. These are actions of a type necessary to carry out the duties of business and personnel management These actions may retrospectively be found discriminatory if based on improper motives; but in that event the remedies provided by the FEHA are those for discrimination, not harassment. Harassment, by contrast, consists of actions outside the scope of job duties which are not of a type necessary to business and personnel management. This significant distinction underlies the differential treatment of harassment and discrimination in the FEHA ( Janken, supra, 46 Cal.App.4th at pp. 63-65, 53 Cal.Rptr.2d 741, fns. omitted.)