Judge: Douglas W. Stern, Case: 19STCV25387, Date: 2023-01-27 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 19STCV25387 Hearing Date: January 27, 2023 Dept: 68
Mahtab
Taban vs. Gursey, Schneider & Co. LLC, et al., Case No. 19STCV25387
Motion: Motion for
Judgment on the Pleadings
Moving
Party: Defendant Gursey
Schneider LLP
Responding
Party: Plaintiff Mahtab
Taban
Motion: Motion
for Sanctions
Moving Party: Plaintiff
Mahtab Taban
Responding Party: Defendant
Gursey Schneider LLP
The Motion for Sanctions is
DENIED.
The Court is issuing an order
in this case that henceforth, no motion for sanctions (other than under the
discovery statutes) my be filed without all parties first participating in an
informal conference with the Court and obtaining permission from the Court to
file such a motion.
Defendant is ordered to
prepare an order stating the Court’s order on an informal conference, circulate
it to Plaintiff’s counsel for approval, and submit it to the Court for filing.
DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR
JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS
BACKGROUND
Apparently,
there was some confusion. Gursey,
Schneider & Co. LLC or Gursey Schneider LLP? Plaintiff initially named Gursey Schneider &
Co. LLC in her DFEH administrative claim filed June 7, 2019, with no
mention of Gursey Schneider LLP. Plaintiff
has since included Gursey Schneider LLP in these proceedings, but Defendant
contends Plaintiff did not timely assert a claim against LLP for purposes of exhausting
her administrative remedies.
Although
this Court had sustained many of the motions brought by Defendant attacking the
pleadings, Plaintiff claims that this newest effort is worthy of sanctions.
This is an
employment law case in which Plaintiff sued after Defendant Gursey Schneider
LLP (Defendant) (or Gursey, Schneider & Co. LLC) allegedly refused to allow
her to return to work following her pregnancy leave. Defendant has filed a number of motions
challenging the pleadings and has obtained some degree of success. Plaintiff has been granted numerous
opportunities to amend. We now address
the Defendant’s Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings challenging the Plaintiff’s
Third Amended Complaint (TAC) filed January 29, 2021.
Defendant’s primary argument
in favor of the motion for judgment on the pleadings is that Plaintiff did not
exhaust her FEHA remedies because the DFEH letter that she filed on June 7,
2019 (which was filed only days prior to the deadline based on what she had
believed was her employment termination date of June 29, 2018) named “Gursey,
Schneider & Co. LLC” as her employer.
There was no mention of “Gursey Schneider LLP.” (Motion at pp. 8-9.) On
July 19, 2019, Plaintiff filed a first amended DFEH complaint, in which she
added Gursey Schneider LLP. On this same day, Plaintiff filed the current
action. (Opposition at p. 2.) Both Gursey, Schneider & Co. LLC and Gursey
Schneider LLP were served with a copy of the Complaint on July 25, 2019, at the
same service address. (Opposition at p. 2.)
On August 6, 2019, Plaintiff claims
that she received an email from a member of Defendant’s HR team, telling her
that she was never terminated, but that Defendant was now officially
terminating her. (Opposition at p. 2.)
On January 19, 2021, the
Court granted a prior MJOP filed by Defendant and gave Plaintiff 10 days to
amend her complaint and include facts to support the notion that the relation
back doctrine applied to her amended DFEH complaint, which she did so.
(Opposition at p. 3.)
On June 4, 2021, the Court
ruled on Defendants’ third MSJ/MSA, which was granted in part on the basis that
Plaintiff was never employed by Gursey, Schneider & Co. LLC and was
instead employed Gursey Schneider LLP. The Court denied the motion on all
other grounds, finding that there were triable issues of material fact as to the
causes of action asserted by Plaintiff in her TAC. (Opposition at p. 4.)
Over a year later, on October
18, 2022, Defendant Gursey Schneider LLP filed the MJOP that is currently
before the Court. Plaintiff filed her opposition on January 13, 2023. Defendant
filed its reply on January 20, 2023.
REQUESTS FOR JUDICIAL NOTICE
Defendant
has made several requests for judicial notice. The Court grants Defendant’s
requests as the DFEH filings. The Court denies the request as to Plaintiff’s
responses to requests for admission. The Court denies the rest of the requests
as to documents from its own file. This is an unnecessary request.
Plaintiff
has also made requests for judicial notice. The Court grants Plaintiff’s
requests as to the DFEH filings. The Court denies the request as to the
Declaration of Anna Chobanu, which is not a proper matter for judicial notice.
The Court denies the requests as to its own file, which are unnecessary
requests. The Court denies the request as to the email from Anna Chobanu.
LEGAL STANDARD
A motion
for judgment on the pleadings functions as a general demurrer, challenging
whether a complaint alleges sufficient facts to state a cause of action. (See
CCP § 438(c).) The rules governing demurrers therefore apply. (Orange
Unified School Dist. v. Rancho Santiago Community College Dist. (1997) 54
Cal.App.4th 750, 764.) It is well settled that, in assessing a demurrer, a
complaint must be liberally construed, drawing all reasonable inferences from
the pleaded facts. (Wilner v. Sunset Life Ins. Co. (2000) 78 Cal.App.4th
952, 958.) Thus, the complaint must be given a reasonable interpretation,
“reading it as a whole and its parts in their context.” (Quelimane Co. v.
Stewart Title Guaranty Co. (1998) 19 Cal.4th 26, 38.) A motion for judgment on
the pleadings may only challenge defects apparent on the face of the pleadings
or by matters judicially noticed, drawing all reasonable inferences from the
facts alleged. (See CCP § 438(d); Burnett v. Chimney Sweep (2004)
123 Cal.App.4th 1057.) This is consistent with the Court’s policy of
adjudicating matters on the merits. (See Lopez v. Smith (9th Cir. 2000)
203 F.3d 1122, 1127 (leave to amend should be granted “when justice so
requires” to “facilitate decision on the merits, rather than on the pleadings
or technicalities”); Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1980)
109 Cal.App.3d 148 (dismissals based on pleading technicalities are
disfavored).)
ANALYSIS
A
party seeking relief pursuant to FEHA must first exhaust his or her
administrative remedies. (Wills v. Superior Court (2011) 195 Cal.App.4th
143, 153 (“Before filing a civil action alleging FEHA violations, an employee
must exhaust his or her administrative remedies with DFEH”).) In order to
timely exhaust under the FEHA, for cases where the adverse action occurred
before January 1, 2020, an administrative complaint must be filed with the DFEH
within one year from the date upon which the alleged unlawful employment
“practice” occurred. (Gov. Code § 12960.) As long as the DFEH complaint
identifies the complainant’s employer as having discriminated against
complainant, the complainant is not precluded from bringing a lawsuit against
that employer on ground complainant has failed to exhaust administrative
remedies under FEHA, even if the employer is not referred to by its proper
legal name in the DFEH complaint. (Clark v. Superior Court (2021) 62
Cal.App.5th 289, 307.)
In
Clark, “there was no administrative process to exhaust, because
[Plaintiff] requested and received an immediate right-to-sue notice in this
case pursuant to California Code of Regulations, title 2, section 10005 on the
same day that she filed her DFEH Complaint.” (Clark, 62 Cal.App.5th at
305.) However, assuming one was necessary, the Court in Clark concluded
that plaintiff had exhausted them because “no reasonable person could think
that Clark intended to identify any entity other than [defendant] as a
respondent” where “the Plaintiff’s DFEH Complaint named ‘Oasis
Surgery Center LLC,’ and ‘Oasis Surgery Center, LP’ as
respondents – names that are very similar to [defendant’s] actual fictitious
name, ‘Oasis Surgery Center.’” (Id. at 306-07.)
Additionally, the DFEH
permits amendment of closed complaints to cure the name of a party (2 CCR
10022(a)(3)) or to add new respondents “after the expiration of the one-year
statute of limitations where the amendment either relates back to the same
material facts set forth in the original complaint…” (2 CCR 10022(a)(4)). “The
[DFEH] shall amend closed employment discrimination complaints as requested by
complainants or their counsel.” (2 CCR 10022(d).) “When the [DFEH] amends a
closed complaint, the department shall neither reopen the complaint nor make an
administrative determination on the validity, retroactivity, or merits of the
amendment.” (2 CCR 10022(e).) “When a closed complaint is amended by the
department, the original filing date and right-to-sue notice shall remain in
effect, as shall the original statute of limitations for filing a private
lawsuit.” (2 CCR 10022(f).)
Defendant’s primary basis for
the JMOP is that Plaintiff did not exhaust her administrative remedies before
the one-year deadline for filing the DFEH complaint because she had failed to
correctly name Defendant in the original DFEH complaint. However, based on Clark,
where the party originally named and the actual party had similar enough names,
and the relation-back doctrine found in 2 CCR 10022, Plaintiff was allowed to
amend her original DFEH complaint and did exhaust her remedies on time.
Therefore, she can maintain the causes of action against Defendant.
Accordingly, Defendant’s
Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings is DENIED.
PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR SANCTIONS
Plaintiff’s
motion for sanction is based on the premise that Defendant’s MJOP is frivolous
and brought for an improper purpose.
The Motion
for Judgment on the Pleadings, while denied, was not frivolous. It was not taken for an improper
purpose. It was not to harass. While the Court did not reach the conclusion
sought by Defendant, the arguments were valid and fully justified.
Plaintiff’s
motion for sanctions is DENIED.