Published Aug. 24, 2001
In a case with major implications
for discrimination lawsuits, the California Supreme Court on Thursday upheld
a legal doctrine that allows employees under certain conditions to cite
patterns of discrimination or harassment stretching back more than a year.
The ruling clarifies an area of law
that has been nebulous over the past year, with some courts limiting employees
to citing workplace misconduct going back only one year.
Thursday's decision stemmed from
a 1994 lawsuit by Sacramento engineer Lachi Delisa Richards, who complained
that her former employer, CH2M Hill Inc., failed to adequately accommodate
her after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
In 1997 a Sacramento jury awarded
her $1.4 million in damages.
Mark Van Brussel, a lawyer in Sacramento
for CH2M Hill, said that lawsuit placed his client in an impossible position.
"Many of the things (Richards) complained
about were impossible to refute because of the time that had passed, disappearance
of witnesses, no one available to recall incidents that are claimed to
have occurred," he said.
In March 2000, the 3rd District Court
of Appeal rejected the Sacramento jury finding. It said that Richards knew
her rights were being violated and waited too long before bringing legal
action.
"It was the first time any court
in California made an employee's knowledge of being harmed a criteria for
when the one-year statute of limitation for filing a lawsuit would begin,"
explained Richards' Sacramento attorney, Christopher H. Whelan.
Thursday's Supreme Court ruling redefined
what is required to recover damages for actions going back more than a
year and determined that an employee's knowledge of the harm is irrelevant
in triggering the clock for filing a lawsuit.
The court found that if a company
and an employee are working together toward resolving harassment or discrimination
complaints, then the one-year clock should not start.
That new standard creates an environment
more conducive to resolving complaints, one attorney said Thursday, because
workers don't have to rush into filing a lawsuit out of fear that they
might miss the opportunity if the one-year filing deadline passes.
"The beauty of this decision is that
it doesn't punish people who are reasonable and cooperative and want to
try to work it out," said Whelan.
Now the case goes back to the Sacramento
trial court where the facts will be tested against the Supreme Court's
new standard.
Ted Olsen, a lawyer for Denver-based
CH2M Hill -- one of the nation's biggest engineering firms -- said he's
confident the trial court will find that his client "was in compliance
with the law."
Four of the five California Supreme
Court justices who heard the case agreed that evidence supported the Sacramento
jury's findings that CH2M Hill had engaged in harassment and neglect.
The high court also confirmed that
evidence showed the company had violated Richards' right to reasonable
accommodations under the state's Fair Employment and Housing Act.
Between 1984 and 1993 Richards --
a world-class sprinter who barely missed qualifying for the 1984 Olympic
Trials -- worked for CH2M Hill as a civil engineer in both the Redding
and Sacramento offices. The first four years of her employment experience
were positive, she said, with the company praising her work and allowing
her to work part time to meet her track training schedule.
But in 1988, at the age of 31, Richards
was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and had to use a wheelchair as the
disease took its toll.
According to Whelan's opening brief,
CH2M Hill delayed for almost a year Richards' transfer request to Sacramento
from the Redding site -- a three-story building with no elevator and no
access for wheelchairs.
Other problems the young engineer
faced, according to the brief, included cramped hallways, blocked fire
escapes, elevator doors that would slam shut on her and being assigned
to an isolated room known at the company as the "black hole," which had
no heating or air conditioning.
To overcome those and other similar
barriers, Richards said she often proposed two or three remedies using
her engineering expertise.
"(CH2M Hill management) would promise
to work on it in their way and what typically happened was nothing happened,"
said Richards, who resigned in 1993.
The giant engineering firm did make
some accommodations, such as allowing Richards to work from home, to adopt
a part-time schedule and to transfer to the Sacramento site.
The high court opinion issued Thursday
noted, however, that the Sacramento transfer took so long -- 11 months
-- because a manager "believed Richards had lied on her employment application
about her medical condition, despite the lack of evidence of such misrepresentation."
The Bee's Cathleen Ferraro can be
reached at (916)321-1043 or cferraro@sacbee.com
Copyright © The Modesto Bee
By Cathleen Ferraro
Bee Staff Writer