Judge: Michael Small, Case: 20STCV03322, Date: 2023-09-20 Tentative Ruling
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Case Number: 20STCV03322 Hearing Date: November 7, 2023 Dept: 57
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Pending before the Court is the Defendants' motion for summary adjudication on 19 issues. 18 of the issues relate to claims under the Fair Employment and Housing Act ("FEHA") asserted by Anna Katono; 1 of the issues relate to a FEHA claim asserted by Plaintiff Jack Moy. (Defendants' motion originally sought summary adjudication on a 20th issue related to Katono's claim for whistleblower retaliation under the Labor Code. Defendants withdrew that issue from the Court's consideration.) The Court is denying the motion without prejudice for the reasons set forth below.
ISSUES AS TO KATONO
A. Issues 1-8: Failure to Exhaust Administrative Remedies Due to Lack of Specificity of June 5, 2019 Administrative Complaint
Issues 1-8 address whether Katono's June 5, 2019 administrative complaint to the Department of Fair Employment and Housing ("DEFH") was sufficiently specific to exhaust administrative remedies as required by FEHA . As an initial point, the Court notes that Defendants already raised this issue in an earlier motion for summary adjudication . They did so as part of their argument that Katono's FEHA claims were barred by the statute of limitations because she did not sue within one year of receiving a right to sue letter from DEFH on November 16, 2018 that was based on an administrative complaint that Katono filed with DEFH on that same day. Specifically, Defendants asserted in the earlier motion that the June 5, 2019 administrative complaint, which generated a DEFH right to sue letter on that day, had no operative effect on the timeliness of her lawsuit following issuance of the November 16, 2018 right to sue letter because, among other things, the June 5, 2019 complaint was not sufficiently specific to exhaust administrative remedies. The Court rejected Defendants' argument on the operative effect of the June 5, 2019 complaint and denied Defendants' previous motion for summary adjudication as to the timeliness of Katono's suit. Necessarily implicit in that rejection was a determination that the June 5, 2019 was specific enough to satisfy the exhaustion requirement.
In any event, the Court is now making explicit what was previously implicit. The June 5, 2019 complaint is sufficiently specific to satisfy the exhaustion requirement. The complaint does what it is supposed to do: it puts the Defendants on notice of who is alleged to have done what to Katono and when. Accordingly, Defendants' motion is denied as to Issues 1-8.
B. Issues 9-18: Failure to Exhaust Administrative Remedies Due to Lack of Verification of June 5, 2019 Administrative Complaint
Issues 9-18 address whether the June 5, 2019 administrative was properly verified. Verification of an administrative complaint is another component of FEHA's requirement of exhaustion of administrative remedies, on top of specificity of the complaint. The Court is denying Defendants' motion as to Issues 9-18 for two reasons.
First, Defendants' separate statement of undisputed material facts makes it very difficult for the Court to discern the evidence on which Defendants' are relying as to issues 9-18. The separate statement as to those issues incorporates by reference all of the numbered paragraphs and supporting evidence set forth in the separate statement as to issues 1-8. Plainly, however, not all of those numbered paragraphs and supporting evidence bear on the verification issue. This defect in the separate statement provides grounds for denying the Defendants' motion for summary adjudication as to issues 9-18.
Second, the June 5, 2019 administrative complaint was adequately verified. The complaint contains a verification paragraph in which Katono attests under penalty of perjury to the accuracy of the information contained in the complaint. Katono's counsel signed her name on the complaint. Defendants maintain that Blum v. Superior Court (2006) 141 Cal.App.4th 206, forecloses this device as a way to verify an administrative complaint. Blum does not do that. Nothing in Blum holds that a lawyer cannot effectuate verification of an administrative complaint to FEHA through execution of a client's name on a complaint that contains a verification paragraph. Indeed, if anything, Blum's heavy emphasis on the need for courts to handle FEHA exhaustion issues with an eye toward FEHA's remedial purpose suggests that what Katono's lawyers did meets the verification requirement.
ISSUE AS TO MOY
Issue 20 seeks summary adjudication as to Moy's lone remaining claim, which is for retaliation under FEHA, based on an asserted failure of Moy to exhaust administrative remedies as to that claim because his administrative complaint was not sufficiently specific. The Court cannot consider the merits of this issue because Defendants' notice of motion for summary adjudication did not raise it. The notice raised only the issues as to Katono. The Court is thus denying without prejudice the motion as to issue 20. (The Court is aware that Defendants have failed another motion for summary adjudication that addresses Moy's remaining claim.}