What Remedies are Available in a California Employment Discrimination Case?
In the recent case of Vines v. O'Reilly Auto Enterprises, LLC, Renee Vines sued his former employer O’Reilly Auto Enterprises, LLC for violations of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) (Gov. Code, § 12900 et seq.), alleging race- and age-based discrimination, harassment and retaliation-related claims.
After a jury found in his favor and awarded damages on his claims for retaliation and failure to prevent retaliation, Vines moved for an award of $809,681.25 in attorney fees.
The trial court awarded only $129,540.44 in fees, based in part on its determination the unsuccessful discrimination and harassment claims were not sufficiently related or factually intertwined with the successful retaliation claims.
On appeal Vines contended that determination was based on a legal error and the court thus abused its discretion in reducing the fee award. The appellate court agreed, reversed the postjudgment fee order and remanded for the trial court to recalculate Vines’s fee award.
In 2017, Vines filed a complaint against O’Reilly alleging he was a 59-year-old Black man who had been subjected during his employment with O’Reilly to discriminatory treatment and harassment by his supervisor Tim Fonder and others because of his age and race.
For example, Fonder allegedly created false and misleading reviews of Vines, yelled at him and denied his requests for training given to younger, non- Black employees. Although Vines repeatedly complained to O’Reilly’s management regarding the harassment and discrimination, O’Reilly took no remedial action.
Instead, the company began an investigation that was pretextual and conducted to seek a reason for terminating Vines’s employment.
Vines alleged six causes of action: two for discrimination (race and age); two for harassment (race and age); retaliation; and failure to prevent discrimination, harassment and retaliation.
O’Reilly moved for summary judgment or, in the alternative, summary adjudication as to each of Vines’s claims.
The trial court denied O’Reilly’s summary judgment motion, finding triable issues of material facts existed—including as to whether O’Reilly had been motivated by racial animus in taking disciplinary action against Vines and retaliated against Vines for his complaints—but granted summary adjudication of Vines’s causes of action for age discrimination and age harassment, finding Vines had failed to present any evidence his age had anything to do with his termination or O’Reilly’s alleged discrimination, harassment or retaliation.
The parties tried the remaining four causes of action before a jury.
For Vines’s retaliation claim the jury was instructed, in part: “Mr. Vines does not have to prove discrimination or harassment in order to be protected from retaliation. If he reasonably believed that O’Reilly’s conduct was unlawful he may prevail on a retaliation claim even if he does not present, or prevail on, a separate claim for discrimination or harassment.”
The jury returned its verdict finding against Vines on his race discrimination (disparate treatment) and harassment claims: The jury found Vines’s race was not a substantial motivating reason for O’Reilly’s discharge or other adverse employment action and Vines was not subjected to unwanted harassing conduct because of his race.
Vines, however, prevailed on his retaliation and failure to prevent retaliation claims.
For his retaliation claim, as reflected on the special verdict form, the jury’s findings included that Vines had “complained to a supervisor, human resources or the T.I.P.S. Hotline of what he reasonably believed to be race discrimination, race harassment, or unlawful retaliation.”
The jury awarded Vines $70,200 in damages: $35,100 for economic loss and $35,100 for noneconomic loss.
Although the jury also found Vines had proved by clear and convincing evidence that an officer, director or managing agent of O’Reilly acting on O’Reilly’s behalf engaged in unlawful retaliation with malice, oppression or fraud, or that O’Reilly knew of that conduct and adopted or approved it after it occurred, the jury in a subsequent phase of the trial awarded Vines nothing as punitive damages.
Vines moved for an award of $809,681.25 in attorney fees—a lodestar of $647,745 with a 1.25 multiplier.
In its opposition to Vines’s attorney fee motion O’Reilly contended Vines was not the prevailing party for purposes of an award of attorney fees; but, even if he were, his fee request should be denied altogether because the amount of fees he requested was excessive given the nominal jury award and Vines’s limited success: The jury had awarded Vines only $70,200 even though in his closing argument he had sought more than $2.5 million in damages, and Vines had prevailed on only two of his six causes of action.
O’Reilly argued in the alternative the fee amount should be substantially reduced because a court has discretion to limit fees for unsuccessful causes of action if they were not related to the successful causes of action or the plaintiff did not obtain substantial relief.
O’Reilly asserted Vines’s FEHA claims were not interrelated and, even if the trial court were to find otherwise, Vines had obtained only limited success in the litigation, not substantial relief or “excellent results,” for the reasons O’Reilly had already stated in arguing for a denial of any fees.
Government Code section 12965 authorizes an award of attorney fees to the prevailing party in an action under FEHA: “In civil actions brought under this section, the court, in its discretion, may award to the prevailing party . . . reasonable attorney[ ] fees and costs.”
Because fee awards to prevailing FEHA plaintiffs promote the important public policy in favor of eliminating discrimination in using the same principle even in the absence of an offer under that statutory provision.
In order to calculate an attorney fee award under the FEHA, courts generally use the well-established lodestar method. The lodestar amount is simply the product of the number of hours spent on the case, times an applicable hourly rate.
The trial court then has the discretion to increase or reduce the lodestar figure by applying a positive or negative multiplier based on a variety of factors.
Vines asserted the trial court’s ruling his unsuccessful discrimination and harassment claims were not sufficiently related to or factually intertwined with his successful retaliation- based claims was predicated on a legal error and the court thus abused its discretion in reducing the amount awarded on this ground.
Specifically, he argued the trial court’s ruling was based on a faulty temporal analysis that failed to recognize he had to present evidence of the conduct underlying his discrimination and harassment claims to prove the reasonableness of his belief that such conduct was unlawful, as required to succeed on his retaliation cause of action.
The retaliation provision of FEHA forbids an employer to discharge, expel, or otherwise discriminate against any person because the person has opposed any practices forbidden under FEHA.
To establish a prima facie case of retaliation under the FEHA, a plaintiff must show (1) he or she engaged in a protected activity, (2) the employer subjected the employee to an adverse employment action, and (3) a causal link existed between the protected activity and the employer’s action.
It is well established that a retaliation claim may be brought by an employee who has complained of or opposed conduct that the employee reasonably believes to be discriminatory, even when a court later determines the conduct was not actually prohibited by the FEHA.
An employee is protected against retaliation if the employee reasonably and in good faith believed that what he or she was opposing constituted unlawful employer conduct.
A plaintiff must not only show that he subjectively (that is, in good faith) believed that his employer was engaged in unlawful employment practices, but also that his belief was objectively reasonable in light of the facts and record presented.
The trial court was held to have abused its discretion in determining Vines’s reasonable attorney fees when the trial court stated it found the claims were not sufficiently related or factually intertwined because any facts related to Vines being retaliated against arose after he complained about the discrimination and harassment conduct.
That statement reflects a legal error. Evidence of the facts regarding the alleged underlying discriminatory and harassing conduct about which Vines had complained was relevant to establish, for the retaliation cause of action, the reasonableness of his belief that conduct was unlawful.
Indeed, an employment discrimination cases, by their very nature, involve several causes of action arising from the same set of facts.
O’Reilly argued the trial court’s exercise of discretion in declining to award all of Vines’s requested attorney fees should nonetheless be affirmed because O’Reilly had defeated Vines’s age-based discrimination and harassment claims with its motion for summary adjudication; Vines lost at trial on his race-based discrimination and harassment claims; the jury awarded Vines only $70,000 on his retaliation claims, which was only 3 percent of the amount Vines had sought; and the jury declined to award punitive damages.
O’Reilly, however, ignored that the trial court expressly ruled Vines had won substantial relief and obtained excellent results and, aside from the reductions for specific fees not reasonably incurred, had reduced the attorney fees amount because it had found Vines’s claims were not sufficiently related or factually intertwined.
O’Reilly asserted the trial court’s determination Vines’s unsuccessful claims were not closely related to his successful claims was a factual finding supported by substantial evidence.
It contended Vines’s discrimination and harassment claims involved different facts—including different actors, locations, documents and motives—from his retaliation claims. O’Reilly argues the age-based claims had no relationship to the retaliation claims tried to the jury.
For Vines’s race-based claims, it asserted the alleged discrimination and harassment involved the conduct and comments of Fonder and certain of Vines’s coworkers on-site at O’Reilly’s Santa Clarita store, while Vines’s retaliation claims involved the conduct of O’Reilly’s management personnel, including Larotonda, none of whom participated in any underlying discrimination or harassment and whose sole involvement was in reviewing off-site Vines’s personnel file to determine whether termination of Vines’s employment complied with O’Reilly’s policies.
The trial court’s stated reason for its ruling regarding the insufficient relatedness of the claims, however, was not on the ground the age-based claims had no relationship to the retaliation-based claims. And the determination whether any facts related to Vines’s retaliation claim arose after he had complained about the discriminatory and harassing conduct, which was the basis for the court’s ruling Vines’s claims were not factually intertwined, entailed a legal conclusion: Whether evidence supports one claim but not another is not a historical fact.
Because evidence of the facts regarding the conduct about which Vines complained was probative as to whether he reasonably believed it constituted unlawful discrimination and harassment, the court erred in determining any facts related to the retaliation claim arose after he had complained about that conduct.
LESSONS:
1. Government Code section 12965 authorizes an award of attorney fees to the prevailing party in an action under FEHA, providing in civil actions brought under this section, the court, in its discretion, may award to the prevailing party reasonable attorney's fees and costs.
2. To establish a prima facie case of retaliation under the FEHA, a plaintiff must show (1) he or she engaged in a protected activity, (2) the employer subjected the employee to an adverse employment action, and (3) a causal link existed between the protected activity and the employer’s action.
3. A plaintiff must not only show that he subjectively (that is, in good faith) believed that his employer was engaged in unlawful employment practices, but also that his belief was objectively reasonable in light of the facts and record presented.