Oakland Personal Injury Attorney Blog

Southern California Coach Sues University, Claims Termination Constituted Discrimination Against His Disability of Alcoholism

December 31, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

One of the potentially tricky issues an employer can face involves dealing with an employee who is an alcoholic, or otherwise uses drugs or alcohol. Under the Fair Employment and Housing Act, alcoholism is a recognized disability, so taking an adverse employment action based solely on the employee’s alcoholism is problematic. In some cases, an employer may, however, discipline or terminate an employee for drug- or alcohol-related misconduct, even if the employee’s alcoholism disability is the underlying cause. The nuances of this area of the law are on center stage in the case of former University of Southern California Trojans football coach Steve Sarkisian, who is suing the school for disability discrimination.

The law regarding alcoholism and disability discrimination under the FEHA is fairly clear in some regards. Alcoholism may, in some situations, qualify as a disability under the statute. If it does, the employer has a legal obligation to engage in an interactive process to find a reasonable accommodation of the employee’s disability. The law does not, though, require an employer to accommodate an employee to the point of continuing to employ an employee who cannot perform the essential functions of his job. The law also does not demand that employers allow their employees to be drunk on the job or engage in excessive consumption at work.

Insurer Not Liable in Bad Faith for Not Settling Claim Following Fatal Southern California Crash

December 15, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

An insurer emerged victorious in a bad faith lawsuit arising from a fatal auto accident in which the insurer’s insured, a teen driver, caused an accident that killed his passenger. The California Court of Appeal decided that it was not bad faith for the insurer not to pay for a settlement that the insured negotiated “behind the back” of the insurer.

The case centered on a fatal auto accident in San Bernardino County. Cy Tapia, a teenage who lived with his aunt and grandmother, was driving a truck owned by his grandfather when he crashed. Tapia’s passenger, Cory Driscoll, eventually died from injuries he sustained in the accident. Driscoll’s family sued. Although the teen’s grandfather owned the car, Tapia’s sister insured the vehicle. The sister’s insurance policy had a limit of $100,000. The insurer, 21st Century Insurance Co., offered to settle for $100,000. The Driscoll family, believing that the teen might be covered under two $25,000 policies held by the grandmother and the aunt, made a limited-time settlement offer of $150,000. The insurance company did not respond in time but later made its own $150,000 settlement offer.

Timing Proves Critical to Failure of Employer’s Defense in California Woman’s Pregnancy Discrimination Case

November 30, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

A former employee at a financial firm was entitled to damages and attorneys’ fees for pregnancy discrimination, according to a Los Angeles County trial court. The California Court of Appeal recently upheld that decision in the woman’s Fair Employment and Housing Act case, since the employer failed to prove that it would have fired the employee in the same timeframe if it had not known about her pregnancy.

The employee in the case, Fatanah LaFleur, had worked at Woodbridge Structured Funding, LLC for only a few months when she became pregnant. Shortly thereafter, Woodbridge terminated the woman. LaFleur sued under the FEHA, claiming that Woodbridge fired her due to her pregnancy and that she was the second woman to suffer such treatment within a month. LaFleur’s supervisor claimed that he did not know about the pregnancy and fired the woman for gossiping and disrupting the office’s staff.

California Accident Victim Entitled to Recover Full Amount of Past Medical Expenses, Despite Medical Providers’ Sale of Lien at a Discount

November 16, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

Auto accident cases often involve serious injuries that require extensive (and expensive) medical care to treat. When the accident victim doesn’t have health insurance, this can become complicated. In an important new case on the issue of the issue of assessing economic damages (such as past medical expenses) in an auto accident case, the California Court of Appeal upheld a trial judge’s decision not to admit evidence about how much a third-party company paid medical providers for a lien those medical providers had on any civil judgment award the victim might receive from a lawsuit related to the wreck.

The case began when a vehicle driven by Clare Meline collided with a vehicle driven by Anna Uspenskaya at a busy intersection. The wreck caused Uspenskaya to suffer substantial back injuries. Uspenskaya ultimately required surgery to correct a herniated lumbar disc. Uspenskaya, at the time of the accident, did not have health insurance. In order to secure treatment, Uspenskaya entered into an agreement with her doctor and the hospital in which they agreed to treat her in exchange for a legal right to receive a cut from whatever damages award the patient might recover in a personal injury lawsuit. At some later point, the medical providers sold that lien at a discount to a third-party financial services entity, MedFinManagers LLC.

California Gas Company’s Psychological Evaluation Demand Was Reasonable in Light of Employee’s Stalking Behavior

October 30, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

A gas company dispatcher, who sent her former supervisor hundreds of text messages, phone calls and emails, even after receiving explicit instructions to stop from the former supervisor and her current supervisor, was not able to support a claim of retaliation in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act after her employer required her to undergo a psychological evaluation. Since the employer’s decision was a legitimate and reasonable response to the employee’s behavior, the California Court of Appeal (downloadable word doc) determined that it could not constitute retaliation in violation of the law.

The employee in this case, Maria Valdivia, worked for Southern California Gas Co., where she was promoted to a dispatch specialist position in October 2009. Three months later, Michael Connors became Valdivia’s supervisor. By May 2010, Valdivia had begun emailing Connors hundreds of times. She also called him, texted him, and drove by his home uninvited. By June, Gregory Gellnick became Valdivia’s supervisor. The voluminous emails, texts, and calls to Connors continued even after he ceased being Valdivia’s supervisor, though. Gellnick had a meeting with Valdivia in February 2011 to tell her to cease contacting Connors.

Statute’s Religion Exemption Blocks California Teacher’s FEHA Claim

October 14, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

A teacher who was the victim of an ongoing pattern of harassment at the hands of students at the school where she taught received a mixed result in her legal action against the school and the Catholic archdiocese that ran it. The US District Court for the Northern District of California allowed the teacher to pursue her federal Title VII claim, but it sided with the archdiocese on the Fair Employment and Housing Act claim, concluding that the state statute’s exemption for religious associations applied.

The case involved the victimization of Kimberly Bohnert, a science teacher at Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo. The problems started with “offensive and sexually graphic” graffiti in a bathroom that depicted Bohnert. Other incidents included sexually inappropriate comments by students on social media involving the teacher and eventually the discovery of cell phone photos and videos that focused up Bohnert’s skirt and were taken without her knowledge or consent.

Believing the school did far too little to end the inappropriate and harassing conduct, the teacher sued the school and the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The teacher alleged that the harassment violated both Title VII and the FEHA. The court allowed the teacher’s Title VII claim to go forward, ruling that the students engaged in an ongoing pattern of activity that was both objectively and subjectively hostile, and that the school authorities did not do enough to prevent the activity from occurring and, once it happened, did not do enough to stop it.

Introducing Settlement Agreements in California Auto Accident Cases

September 30, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

If you are injured in an auto accident, the court case that may follow could involve many different parties, and how that case unfolds may depend on which parties agree to settle. In one recent case, an taxi cab passenger sued both her cab company and another driver after she was injured in a two-car crash. The passenger settled with the cab company, but the agreement allowed the cab company to continue to participate in the case against the second driver. The California Court of Appeal ruled that the second driver should be allowed to introduce the settlement at trial so that the jury could obtain a full picture regarding each party’s motivations and biases.

The case arose from an accident that took place in San Francisco on Jan. 4, 2011. A taxi cab carrying passenger Christine Diamond was broadsided by a sedan driven by Serge Reshko. Reshko’s mother, Valentina Reshko, was riding with her son. The police officer who investigated the accident issued a citation to the cab driver for making an illegal U-turn and also cited Reshko for speeding. Diamond suffered serious injuries to her ribs and back.

Harassment Not Sufficiently Severe, Pervasive to Allow California Spa Worker to Win Case

September 15, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

A spa employee managed to persuade a jury both that she was on the receiving end of sexual harassment while performing her job and that her employer failed to take the necessary steps required to prevent harassment or discrimination from occurring. However, in spite of all this, the employee ultimately recovered nothing. How could this happen? The jury decided that the harassment the employee suffered was not so pervasive or severe to amount to a violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act, and the California Court of Appeal decided that employers have no obligation under the law to ensure that their workplaces are free from acts of harassment or discrimination that do not, in and of themselves, violate the statute.

The employee, Domaniqueca Dickson, worked as a massage therapist at a spa owned by Burke Williams, Inc. At some point during Dickson’s time at the spa, two different customers allegedly harassed the therapist. The employee later sued her employer for violating the FEHA. The employer, she argued, by allowing the harassment to occur, was guilty of sexual discrimination, sexual harassment, and failure to take reasonable steps necessary to prevent harassment and discrimination based on sex.

California Driver Forced to Pay Accident Victim’s Fees, Costs for Unreasonable Refusal to Admit Liability

August 31, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

If you’ve been injured in an accident, chances are the last thing you want to do is go to trial on issues that the other side has no reasonable ground for contesting. Contesting issues without a reasonable belief of victory can be costly to the side who does this, though. In one recent Southern California case, the California Court of Appeal ruled that an accident victim was entitled to receive additional compensation from the driver who injured him, since the other driver decided to fight liability in spite of overwhelming evidence he was at fault.

The case originated with an auto accident in Orange County. In that crash, Levik Mansourian’s vehicle collided with a car driven by Timothy Grace. Mansourian told an investigator that his traffic signal was yellow. An eyewitness, however, said Mansourian’s traffic light was red. Following the accident, Grace underwent both ankle surgery and back surgery.

Governor Signs New California Law to Expand Definition of Protected Activities under FEHA

August 17, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

In July of this year, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 987 into law. That legislation provided an important benefit to employees seeking religious or disability-related accommodations in the workplace. Under the new law, the act of requesting a disability or religious accommodation is now a protected activity under the Fair Employment and Housing Act. The law reversed a 2013 court decision that expressly concluded that employees could not take action against employers who punished them for seeking accommodations.

The new law came about following the California Court of Appeal’s decision in the case of Rope v. Auto-Chlor System of Washington, Inc. Scott Rope, a branch manager for Auto-Chlor, requested 30 days of paid leave in order to recuperate from kidney donation surgery. He made the request after learning about the Michelle Maykin Memorial Donation Protection Act. Two days before the DPA became effective, Auto-Chlor terminated Rope.