Court Opinion

ID: 9631005
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:26:45.634814+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:06:57.688286
License: Public Domain

BROUSSARD, J., Dissenting.
Having determined that the acting Dean of Students of Laney College had subjected his secretary to sexual harassment over a six-month period, including unwanted touching of her breasts and thighs, comments about her sex life, efforts to procure her as a date for himself and his friends, comments about her undergarments, continuous lewd innuendos, and finally slander of her professional competence because of her obduracy towards his sexual advances, the Fair Employment and Housing Commission (Commission) ordered, among other things, that the woman be compensated for her humiliation and distress by the payment of compensatory damages.
The majority hold that the Commission is not authorized to award compensatory damages, and that the abuse described above can adequately be addressed by an order to reinstate the employee, to cease and desist from discriminatory practices and to set up a policy regarding sexual harassment, with the Commission following up to see if there has been compliance.
These remedies, however, do not make the employee whole when reinstatement is not an issue. An employee may have stoically endured a period *61of harassment without a termination of employment. Nonetheless, the employee should be made whole for suffering the deprivation of the right, assured by statute, to work in an environment free from sexual harassment and discrimination. The majority would make the administrative remedy available through the Commission a barren one for such an employee.
Under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (the Act), the Commission has authority to award compensatory damages. The purpose of the Act is to provide effective remedies which will eliminate discriminatory practices. (Gov. Code, § 12920.)1 It is to be liberally construed to accomplish this purpose. (§ 12993, subd. (a).) If the Commission finds that an employer has engaged in a discriminatory practice, it orders the employer to cease and desist and also orders the employer “to take such action, including, but not limited to, hiring, reinstatement or upgrading of employees, with or without back pay, and restoration to membership in any respondent labor organization, as, in the judgment of the commission, will effectuate the purposes of this part, and including a requirement for report of the manner of compliance.” (§ 12970, subd. (a).) This is expansive language, vesting in the Commission broad rather than limited power to devise effective remedies to eradicate employment discrimination. As we said so recently, the Act was “intended to authorize the commission to take such other remedial action as in its judgment seems appropriate to redress a particular unlawful employment practice and to prevent its recurrence, thus eliminating the practice.” (Dyna-Med, Inc. v. Fair Employment & Housing Com. (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1379, 1390 [241 Cal.Rptr. 67, 743 P.2d 1323].)
The measures the Commission may order the employer to undertake all “relate to matters which serve to make the aggrieved employee whole in the context of the employment.” (Dyna-Med, Inc. v. Fair Employment & Housing Com., supra, 43 Cal.3d 1379, 1387.) We decided in Dyna-Med, Inc. that since punitive damages are not this sort of equitable, corrective measure, aimed at “making the employee whole in the context of the employment,” the statute cannot be interpreted to authorize the Commission to award them. “ ‘Punitive damages by definition are not intended to compensate the injured party, but rather to punish the tortfeasor. . . .’ [Citations.]” (Id. at p. 1387.)
Compensatory damages are a completely different story. It is black letter law that compensatory damage awards are intended to make the injured party whole when the injury consists of emotional distress. (See Memphis Community School Dist. v. Stachura (1986) 477 U.S. 299, 307 [91 L.Ed.2d *62249, 258-259, 106 S.Ct. 2537]; Capelouto v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (1972) 7 Cal.3d 889, 892-893 [103 Cal.Rptr. 856, 500 P.2d 880].) Thus it is consistent with Dyna-Med to hold that compensatory damages, as they are not punitive but intended as compensation for injury, are within the authority of the Commission to award.
As the majority willingly acknowledge, we have recognized the emotional damage incurred by those who are subjected to racist abuse and discrimination in the workplace. (Alcorn v. Anbro Engineering, Inc. (1970) 2 Cal.3d 493, 497-498 [86 Cal.Rptr. 88, 468 P.2d 216]; see also Woods-Drake v. Lundy (5th Cir. 1982) 667 F.2d 1198, 1203.) Sexual harassment in the workplace inflicts grave emotional injury as well. (Fisher v. San Pedro Peninsula Hospital (1989) 214 Cal.App.3d 590, 618 [262 Cal.Rptr. 842].) When an employee has been subjected to sexual abuse on the job, the injury normally is one which undermines personal dignity, not one which affects job security. The employee can only be made whole by an award which compensates her for emotional distress. Thus compensatory damages are precisely related to “matters which serve to make the aggrieved employee whole . . . .” Indeed, when reinstatement is not an issue because there has been no termination, compensatory damages are the only remedy which can be provided to the employee and can deter the employer from further transgressions.
The majority maintain that although compensatory damages may serve to make the employee whole, they go substantially beyond the context of the employment. The argument is that the remedies enumerated by the statute focus on corrective measures the employer can take in the workplace, while compensatory damages compensate for intangible injury and are designed to make the victim whole in relation to the offender in the manner of traditional tort damage awards in a jury trial. “This effect, we believe, is beyond the scope of the Legislature’s intended purpose in enacting the FEHA to prevent and eliminate discrimination in the workplace.” (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 49.)
The claim that compensatory damages for emotional injury caused by sexual or racial abuse are not compensation in the context of employment is difficult to understand. Obviously the abuse occurs in the context of employment; indeed, if the abuse caused a disabling injury, the employee would be entitled to a workers’ compensation award to make her whole. (See Cole v. Fair Oaks Fire Protection Dist. (1987) 43 Cal.3d 148 [233 Cal.Rptr. 308, 729 P.2d 743].) If the argument is that the payment of make-whole damages will not ameliorate the employer’s conduct in the workplace, it is mistaken on two grounds. First, the argument depends upon the *63mistaken assumption that the Act is intended to be wholly preventive, and not to operate to make the injured employee whole. Since the Act specifically provides for backpay awards, it is directed not only at improving the employer’s behavior but also at making the abused employee whole. We recognized as much in Dyna-Med. (Dyna-Med, Inc. v. Fair Employment & Housing Com., supra, 43 Cal.3d at p. 1387.) Second, as the Court of Appeal maintained, a compensatory damage award is an effective learning device for obtuse employers. “If employers are forced to compensate for all the effects of their unlawful acts, if they are hit in the pocketbook where it hurts, they will be less likely to discriminate in the future. The awarding of damages will not only deter the wrongdoer, it will send a message to other employers that they must pay for the consequences of their discrimination.”
The majority express the concern that an administrative agency cannot function reliably in the inherently judicial role of assessing damages for emotional injury. (See maj. opn., ante, at pp. 56-57.) This argument expresses a lack of confidence in the competence of an administrative body to adjudicate a claim for compensatory damages. The Legislature does not share this lack of confidence; it has conferred express authority on the State Personnel Board to award compensatory damages for discrimination in the workplace. (§ 19702, subd. (e).) The Commission itself is explicitly authorized to award compensatory damages for housing discrimination. (See § 12987.) There is no reason to think it is less competent in assessing compensatory damages in the context of employment discrimination—or to think that the Commission is less competent than the State Personnel Board to tackle the problem.
The majority also claim that to allow the Commission to award compensatory damages would undermine the ability of the Commission to function efficiently. If it were to award compensatory damages, instead of speedy and informal hearings, it is argued, there would be the expense and delay of factfinding sessions which would resemble proceedings in traditional lawsuits. The majority conclude that such lengthy, complex hearings are better left to the courts, in private civil actions brought against the employer.
In many cases, including this one, the only remedy that will be effective to make the victim whole and to deter future misconduct is a compensatory damage award. If we conclude that such an award can only be had in the judicial forum, we frustrate the legislative goal of providing administrative relief for the problem. Such a rule would encourage claimants to bypass administrative relief, or to treat it simply as a matter of form. If the claimant treats the administrative process as a matter of form, so will the employer and the conference and conciliation goals of the Act would be frustrated. *64Further, more cases would be brought to court, rather than resolved expeditiously in a less expensive forum, as was the intent of the Act. And only those who can afford to pay for counsel could go to court, while the less affluent would be confined to a forum which cannot afford them full compensation. Finally, it is not normally the function of this court to determine how an administrative agency can operate most efficiently; the Commission has determined that it can operate efficiently in this arena, and it is free to abandon the effort if it proves unwieldy or unprofitable.
The majority maintain that to allow the Commission to award compensatory damages would be inconsistent with the purpose of the Act to encourage prompt, inexpensive, and efficient disposition of claims. But a concern with moving the cases along must coexist with a commitment to providing an effective remedy. There is a persistent and prevalent social problem of sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace. (See, e.g., Women Lawyers and the Practice of Law in California, The Women in Law Committee, State Bar of California (1989) [finding that nearly half of survey respondents had experienced sexual harassment on the job; 88 percent perceived subtle, pervasive gender bias within the profession].) We are often taxed with being too litigious a society; one alternative to this state of affairs is to allow administrative remedies to function effectively. This the majority refuse to do.
Kennard, L, concurred.

 All further statutory references are to the Government Code unless otherwise indicated.