Court Opinion

ID: 9859399
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 21:26:07.685083+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:46:05.767973
License: Public Domain

POLLOCK, J.,
concurring and dissenting.
With one exception, I concur in the majority opinion. The exception is that I would affirm the Appellate Division’s grant of summary judgment for K-Mart Stores (K-Mart).
In August 1990, K-Mart hired plaintiff, Nancy Wilson,, to work in its Deptford location; in May 1992, K-Mart transferred her to Freehold. On January 10,1994, K-Mart sold the assets of several stores, including the Freehold store, to a competitor, Wal-Mart *276Stores (Wal-Mart). Wal-Mart continued to employ both Wilson and her supervisor, Roceo Gallo. Wilson claims that Gallo harassed her during their mutual employment by Wal-Mart and ElMart. She also claims that Wal-Mart wrongly terminated her employment on March 4,1994.
On June 9, 1994, Wilson filed a pro se complaint in the Division of Civil Rights (DCR) against Wal-Mart, but not Gallo or K-Mart. Thereafter she retained a lawyer. Because of delays in scheduling a “fact-finding hearing,” her lawyer wrote a letter to the DCR on November 13, 1995. In the letter, he stated, “I am getting concerned that my client may lose her other rights because of the statute of limitations if this matter goes on much longer. My client was terminated on or about March 4,1994.”
On March 4, 1996, precisely two years from the date that WalMart fired her, Wilson filed the within civil action in the Law Division. In addition to Wal-Mart, Wilson named as defendants Gallo and K-Mart. Sometime in May 1996, Wilson withdrew the DCR action against Wal-Mart.
The Law Division denied defendants’ motions for summary judgment. The Appellate Division reversed. In reversing, the Appellate Division specifically ruled that both the exclusivity provision of N.J.S.A. 10:5-27 and the two-year statute of limitations pertaining to personal-injury actions, N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2, barred Wilson’s claims against K-Mart.
The Appellate Division’s ruling comports with Montells v. Haynes, 133 N.J. 282, 627 A.2d 654, which this Court decided on July 27, 1993, approximately six months before K-Mart sold the Freehold store to Wal-Mart. Montells held that a two-year period of limitations governs discrimination claims. Because of a lack of clarity in prior law, we further held that the decision should apply prospectively, “only to eases in which the operative facts arise after the date of the decision.” Id. at 298, 627 A.2d 654. Underlying the prospective application of the decision were considerations of equity and fairness to claimants who may have *277relied mistakenly on the six-year limitations period provided by N.J.S.A. 2A:14-1.
Here, the two-year bar of N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2 precludes Wilson’s action against K-Mart. First, K-Mart sold the Freehold store to Wal-Mart two years and two months before Wilson instituted the within action. From that date forward, Wilson was no longer a K-Mart employee. Montells, which was decided before K-Mart’s sale to Wal-Mart, made clear that the two-year statute of limitations applied to discrimination and harassment claims. It follows that the two-year statute clearly applied when K-Mart sold to Wal-Mart as well as when Wal-Mart fired Wilson. See Standard v. Vas, 279 N.J.Super. 251, 652 A.2d 746 (App.Div.1995). Second, Wilson’s lawyer knew that the two-year statute applied to her claim. Both his letter of November 13, 1995, and his filing of the within action on the second anniversary of Wilson’s termination reflect his actual knowledge of the applicability of the two-year bar. Finally, depriving Wilson of a claim against K-Mart will not leave her without a remedy. Wal-Mart, a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, will remain as a defendant.
The majority’s argument for “equitable tolling” of the statute of limitations because of the DCR’s failure to act on Wilson’s claim against Wal-Mart does not justify the late filing of her claim against K-Mart. Tolling the statute of limitations because of the pendency of the DCR action, according to the majority, comports with the purpose of the LAD. See ante at 270-72, 729 A.2d at 1010. Wilson, however, never named K-Mart or Gallo in her DCR action. Tolling a civil action against K-Mart because Wilson sued Wal-Mart in the DCR strikes me as both unreasonable and inequitable.
Contrary to the majority opinion, moreover, I find nothing “subtle and demanding,” ante at 271, 729 A.2d at 1010, about determining when the statute of limitations began to run against K-Mart. The statute began to run no later than the date on which K-Mart ceased to be Wilson’s employer. The date of the *278sale of K-Mart’s assets to Wal-Mart marks the last time that K-Mart had anything to do with plaintiff as her employer.
Finally, the argument that K-Mart’s and Wal-Mart’s alleged actions may constitute a single continuing tort is one of the majority’s own creation. See ante at 273-74, 729 A.2d at 1011-12. The Court would bring K-Mart within the two-year limitation by placing its “final act,” initiating the running of the statute, during Wal-Mart’s tenure, Wilson never has argued that Wal-Mart’s actions tolled the statute against K-Mart or that any relationship so connected the two employers that torts allegedly committed by each individually could constitute one continuous tort.
The cases cited by the majority supporting application of the continuing-tort doctrine to sexual harassment actions each concern a single employer, a long history of specifically alleged offenses, corroboration, and a record of reports to supervisors. See, e.g., Paine v. Department of Mental Health Servs., No. C-92-2953-SC, 1995 WL 56588 (N.D.Cal. Feb.7, 1995); Bustamento v. Tucker, 607 Co.2d 532 (La.1992). None addresses the novel aspect of the majority’s decision in the present case: its finding that a sexual harassment tort asserted against one employer extends to another.
I would affirm the dismissal of the complaint against K-Mart.
PORITZ, C.J., and GARIBALDI, J., join in this opinion.