In a victory for California employers, the Court of Appeal narrowed the scope of actionable claims under the Fair Employment and Housing Act ("FEHA") for race retaliation and "associational" racial harassment. In addition, the Court limited the application of the continuing violations doctrine to preclude employees from pleading uncertain and/or overly general allegations in support of hostile work environment claims.
In Thompson v. City of Monrovia, plaintiff, an underperforming veteran police officer, alleged he was retaliated against after he advised colleagues of his intent to report racism within the police department. In particular, he alleged being subjected to various adverse employment actions, including performance counseling and denial of pay increases and bonuses, among others.
In affirming the trial court's grant of summary judgment on the plaintiff's claims for retaliation and harassment based on race, the Court of Appeal held that the plaintiff failed to establish pretext in the form of evidence of actual discrimination sufficient to overcome the employer's legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for its conduct related to the plaintiff's prolonged history of performance problems. Additionally, the Court adopted the governing Federal Title VII standard in determining that the plaintiff failed to state an actionable claim for "associational" racial harassment by failing to produce evidence that he was personally targeted because of his association with or advocacy on behalf of a protected class. Rather, the plaintiff, who was Caucasian, merely alleged that he was offended by racist comments directed at his African-American co-workers, which proved insufficient for an "associational" racial harassment claim.
Lastly, the Court clarified that the continuing violations doctrine exception to FEHA's strict one-year statute of limitations does not apply where an employee fails to specify harassing conduct that occurred within the limitations period. Here, plaintiff's general allegation that he was subjected to "numerous incidents of harassment" over the course of three years' time was insufficient since the plaintiff was required to identify a specific incident of alleged racial harassment within the requisite one-year statute of limitations.
Going forward, California employers will rest assured knowing that underperforming employees who may have engaged in protected conduct will likely be precluded from riding the coattails of weak retaliation and discrimination claims under the FEHA. Indeed, the ultimate burden to produce evidence of actual discrimination and pretext lies with employees. Moreover, this ruling clarifies that viable claims for "associational" racial harassment require employees to be personally targeted because of their association with or advocacy in support of a particular protected group of individuals.