Court Opinion

ID: 9701259
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:13:18.998953+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:21.715194
License: Public Domain

LaVECCHIA, J.,
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority and would affirm the Appellate Division’s holding that plaintiffs continuing-violation complaint against Rutgers, brought pursuant to the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD), N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 to 5-42, is barred by the two-year statute of limitations determined to be applicable in Montells v. Haynes, 133 N.J. 282, 627 A.2d 654 (1993).
I.
In June 1996, plaintiff brought this LAD action contending that from 1980 through September 1993 he was employed as the “Director” of the Paul Robeson Cultural Center at Rutgers University, but was paid as an “Administrative Coordinator.” He claims that the differential in pay between what he received as administrative coordinator and the higher range paid to directors was a result of race discrimination.
On July 27, 1993, this Court issued its decision in Montells v. Haynes, supra. Later, in September 1993, after a search process in which plaintiff applied and was considered for the newly created position of “Executive Director for the Paul Robeson Center,” Rutgers hired Dr. Rae Alexander Minter. Plaintiff continued working as administrative coordinator, reporting to Dr. Alexander Minter through the summer of 1995, receiving the same salary as *290before. There is no question that plaintiffs cause of action accrued no later than the date on which he was replaced by Dr. Alexander Minter. However, plaintiff did not file his complaint until June 3,1996.
Plaintiffs complaint alleges two counts. The first sounds in contract and asserts that from 1980 through 1993 plaintiff performed as a director within the University, but was paid only as an administrative coordinator. The trial court’s dismissal of that count was affirmed by the Appellate Division. It is not before us.
The second count alleges the same facts during the same time period and asserts that the pay disparity was due to discrimination on the basis of race, contrary to the LAD. For this alleged continuing discrimination in the terms and conditions of his employment, plaintiff seeks compensatory and other damages.
The trial court applied a two-year statute of limitations to plaintiffs LAD claim and dismissed it. On appeal, the Appellate Division affirmed, holding that a plaintiff could not reasonably rely on a six-year statutory period beyond two years after the Montells decision issued. In support of its decision, the panel cited Justice Garibaldi’s dissent in Wilson v. Wal-Mart Stores, 158 N.J. 263, 287-89, 729 A.2d 1006 (1999), and the decision in Standard v. Vas, 279 N.J.Super. 251, 254-56, 652 A.2d 746 (App.Div.1995), in which the Appellate Division held that a change in the age of majority from twenty-one to eighteen did not give those who had relied on the age of twenty-one a period of two years past their twenty-first birthdays to file their claims.
The majority now reverses and holds that because plaintiff claimed a continuing violation, some aspects of which predate the decision in Montells, he is entitled to the benefit of the six-year statute of limitations from the point at which he was replaced as director. To rescue this plaintiffs cause of action, the majority points to plaintiffs contention that he relied on the Court’s language in Montells concerning the decision’s implementation in delaying his institution of suit. Plaintiff, and the majority, focus on the following discussion in Montells:
*291The state of the law on the applicable statute of limitations under LAD was sufficiently murky to justify plaintiffs reasonable reliance on the six-year period. In addition, the Legislature has directed a liberal reading of LAD to afford the greatest protection to victims of discrimination. On balance, we conclude that our decision today should apply purely prospectively. Consequently, it applies only to cases in which the operative facts arise after the date of decision. See Coons II, [Coons v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc.], supra, 96 N.J. [419] at 425-35, 476 A.2d 763 [1984]. Our decision does not apply to this case, pending cases, or to cases the operative facts of which arose before the date of this decision.
[Montells, supra, 133 N.J. at 298, 627 A.2d 654.]
The majority interprets the term “the operative facts” in Montells to mean that all facts must postdate the issuance of Montells in order for the newly announced two-year limitation period to apply. I disagree.
II.
Plaintiffs cause of action under the LAD is bottomed on his contention that while he occupied the position of director of the Paul Robeson Cultural Center he was not paid the salary fpr that position. Rather, he and he alone among directors was paid at the lower salary range for administrative coordinator. Thus couched, his claim for statute-of-limitations purposes certainly accrued no later than September 1993, when he was replaced as director by Dr. Alexander-Minter. It is true that-he could have brought the suit sooner, because under his continuing-violation theory each separate act of paying him at a discriminatorily low salary level since 1980 constituted a separate act of discrimination, but he was under no obligation to do so.
Plaintiff is situated no differently than another victim of discrimination who suffered a wrong in September 1993. Both have causes of action that accrued as of that date. Yet plaintiff claims he should be treated more indulgently in the sense that the hypothetical victim indisputably must bring his suit within two years of the single act of discrimination committed against him in September 1993, but plaintiff claims an entitlement to bring his claim within six years of the last act in a series of continuing acts of discrimination committed against him. He does not assert a *292rational basis for the privileged position he seeks. Logic dictates that he should be held to a stricter standard because he relies on facts that are considerably more dated than those of the hypothetical victim, and as the majority acknowledges, justice in some circumstances calls for prompt exposition of evidence, not a lengthy delay in the testing of the credibility of the evidence.
Plaintiff rather argues that we should accord him special status because the language the Court used in announcing the rule of prospective application of the two-year statute of limitations in Montells misled him and lulled him into a sense of complacency about when to bring his suit. Unlike the majority, I find this, argument utterly unpersuasive.
The Court’s reference to “the operative facts” in Montells must be understood sensibly and in the context of the seminal issue that was decided in that case: determining the timeliness of a LAD action. In the context of analyzing a cause of action for timeliness, the term “the operative facts” of a cause of action commonly relates to the timing of “accrual” of the claim. The two terms are related, and not distinct. As recognized in Burd v. New Jersey Telephone Co., 76 N.J. 284, 301, 386 A.2d 1310 (1978)(Handler, J., dissenting), the accrual date of a claim pursuant to a timeliness analysis is determined by the operative facts of the cause of action unless delayed by operation of some legal principle, such as the discovery rule. Similarly, the judicially developed doctrine of “continuing violation” extends the reach of civil rights statutes, including the LAD, by delaying the accrual date of such claims to the latest possible date from among the operative facts, but recognizes that all of the facts included in the continuous violation are actionable and timely. Wilson, supra, 158 N.J. at 274, 729 A.2d 1006.
Plaintiff here asserts such a “continuing-violation” claim. He seeks damages for the allegedly illegal salary paid to him dating back to 1980 and continuing until Dr. Alexander Minter was appointed as Director of the Paul Robeson Center. Continuing-violation cases have been recognized in LAD claims for decades in *293New Jersey. See Terry v. Mercer County Bd. of Chosen Freeholders, 173 N.J.Super. 249, 253, 414 A.2d 30 (App.Div.1980), modified on other grounds, 86 N.J. 141, 430 A.2d 194 (1981) (holding that discriminatory conduct in form of unequal wages and refusals to promote are continuing violations for purposes of determining whether claim is barred from relief); Decker v. Board of Educ. of Elizabeth, 153 N.J.Super. 470, 474, 380 A.2d 285 (App.Div.1977) (recognizing act of sex discrimination as continuing violation), certif. denied, 75 N.J. 612, 384 A.2d 842 (1978).
This Court in Wilson v. Wal-Mart Stores acknowledged that several courts, including the Appellate Division decision in Terry v. Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders, supra, recognize that the “cumulative effect of a series of discriminatory or harassing events represents a single cause of action for tolling purposes and that the statute of limitations period does not commence until the date of the final act of harassment.” Wilson, supra, 158 N.J. at 273, 729 A.2d 1006. In Wilson, the Court conceded that a claim, if viewed as a continuing tort of discrimination, is “indivisible.” Id. at 274, 729 A.2d 1006. In that matter, it was necessary to conclude that Wilson’s claim was a continuing LAD violation in order to find her predecessor employer, K-Mart, liable for damages. It is illuminating here that in the context of considering the viability of Wilson’s continuing-violation contentions as against Wal-Mart and K-Mart, which involved facts spanning both before and after the date of the Montells decision, the Court applied the two-year statute of limitations period to plaintiffs action. Ibid.; see also id. at 276-77, 729 A.2d 1006 (Pollock, J., dissenting) (applying two-year statute of limitations to plaintiffs claim as against K-Mart, where last act of alleged discrimination ceased after date of Montells decision).
III.
It is incongruous and inequitable to treat differently one plaintiff whose continuing-violation claim of discrimination started years before the Montells decision and ended years after that *294decision and another plaintiff whose claim of discrimination involves .facts that all occurred on the same day that the first plaintiffs ended. Both had their causes of action accrue on the same day. Yet the majority’s holding would treat more indulgently the plaintiff whose claim is more stale. Thus, the plaintiff who waited longer to pursue his claim would be rewarded with the application of an even longer statute of limitations-six years instead of two. To read the Court’s language in Montells to compel such a conclusion is unreasonable. Although the language arguably may be said to be imprecise, it is being used to compel an unreasonable result. Moreover, the result is inconsistent with the Court’s consideration and application-of Montells in the setting of another continuing-violation LAD action in Wilson:
I recognize that because of the majority’s ruling, the discrepancy in treatment presented by this case will not be a continuing anomaly. Henceforth, when a cause of action involves alleged facts that have arisen prior to July 27, 1993, “plaintiffs must file their actions prior to the expiration of the six-year statute of limitations period or within two years from the date of this opinion, whichever is earlier.” 166 N.J. at 282, 765 A.2d at 715. Nonetheless, because I see no reasonable basis to distinguish plaintiff from others whose causes of actions accrued post -Mon-tells, I respectfully dissent.
For reversal and remandmentr-Ghiet Justice PORITZ and Justices STEIN, COLEMAN, LONG, VERNIERO and ZAZZALI — 6.
' For affirmance — Justice LaVECCHIA — 1.