The following is a summary of many significant employment LAW decisions from 2020:
ADMINISTRATIVE REMEDIES
The employee, and not his attorney, must file the DFEH complaint. Ruberson v. Gerdau Reinforcing Steel (C.D. Cal. 2020) 2020 U.S. Dist. 122888; 2020 WL 3891679. Plaintiff’s counsel, and not the plaintiff, filed the DFEH complaint and the right-to-sue letter was in the attorney’s name. Four months after filing the initial complaint in this action, Plaintiff filed an amended charge with the DFEH to substitute in Plaintiff’s name for the Complainant. In dismissing the complaint, the court held that the original charge did not constitute exhaustion of remedies by Plaintiff and that the later amendment to substitute his name as the complainant did not relate back to the earlier charge filed in the attorney’s (At *6.)
The employee waited too long to amend his complaint; MSJ affirmed. Foroudi v. The Aerospace Corporation (2020) no. B291302; 2020 Cal. App. Lexis 1127; 2020 DJDAR 12689. Plaintiff filed a DFEH complaint in January 2013 alleging, without any supporting facts, discrimination, harassment and retaliation because of his age, associational disability, medical leave, national origin and religion. He was given a right-to-sue letter the next day. More than a year later, he filed an amended DFEH complaint alleging that he had been laid off because he is Muslim, over 60 and Persian and that younger, non-Muslims and non-Persians had not been terminated. He filed his complaint in superior court in August 2014. After the case had been moved to the federal court, that court found that plaintiff had not exhausted his administrative remedies. The matter was remanded to the superior court after plaintiff dismissed with prejudice his federal ADEA claim. In June 2015, plaintiff received a new right-to-sue letter from the EEOC. He filed an amended DFEH complaint in April 2016 with a new allegation that the lay-off had a disparate impact. The DFEH did not issue a new right-to-sue notice. The trial court denied the plaintiff’s motion to amend his complaint to add class and disparate impact claims. The appellate court affirmed that order, noting that…