Valdez v. City of Los Angeles

JOHNSON, J., Concurring and Dissenting.

I concur in parts I and II of the majority opinion and in part III insofar as it holds the Los Angeles Police Department was properly dismissed as a defendant. However, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding Gates, Spencer and Taylor were improperly named as defendants in this action.

As the majority acknowledges, no California case has addressed the question whether a civil suit is permissible against a party not named in a complaint filed with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. However, in Watson v. Department of Rehabilitation (1989) 212 Cal.App.3d 1271, 1288 [ 261 Cal.Rptr. 204 ] we took the view Government Code section 12960 1 should be liberally construed in terms of its pleading requirement. We held, therefore, the defendant was not prejudiced by the trial court’s admission of evidence showing examples of harassment beyond those contained in Ms. Watson’s administrative complaint. We construed the administrative complaint to provide the basis for an investigation into an employee’s claim of discrimination not as a “limiting device.” (Ibid.)

I believe we should apply the same liberality to Valdez’s claim we applied to Watson’s. Section 12960 requires the claimant to state the name of the “person [or] employer” alleged to have committed “the unlawful practice complained of. . . .” However, the complaint form furnished Valdez by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing makes no mention of naming the “person” who discriminated against the claimant. The form states: “Named Is the Employer, Labor Organization, Employment Agency Apprenticeship Committee, State or Local Government Agency Who Discriminated Against Me.” Below this statement is a box labeled “name.” Valdez filled in this box: “Los Angeles, City of, Police Department.” The statutory requirement Valdez name the “employer” who discriminated against him is ambiguous. Who was Valdez’s employer? The City of Los Angeles? The Los Angeles Police Department? Chief of Police Daryl Gates? His division commander, Robert Taylor? Lawyers confronted with questions like this typically resolve them by naming everyone in sight. But Valdez is not a lawyer, and requiring a claimant to hire a lawyer to complete *1063 a discrimination claim form would be antithetical to the purposes of the legislation. 2 Furthermore, the ambiguity of section 12960 is compounded by the complaint form which fails to notify the claimant he or she should name the “person” alleged to have committed discriminatory acts. If the form had contained such notice it is reasonable to believe Valdez would have named Gates, Spencer and Taylor. Certainly, the contrary cannot be assumed, without evidence, on defendants’ motion for summary judgment.

As noted by the majority, federal courts construing title VII have disagreed over whether a defendant in a civil suit must have been named in the administrative complaint. In my view, California courts should follow the approach of the Ninth Circuit which permits suit against an unnamed party if the party’s involvement was likely to have been revealed in the course of the administrative investigation. (Chung v. Pomona Valley Community Hospital (9th Cir. 1982) 667 F.2d 788, 792 .) In Chung , the plaintiff, a medical technologist, filed a charge with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging the hospital where he worked had discriminated against him on the basis of race in the terms and conditions of his employment including denying him promotions and training opportunities. Drs. Palma, Spencer, Cadman and Hoblit directed the laboratory in which Chung worked and participated in promotional decisions about Chung. The doctors were not named in Chung’s administrative complaint but were named as defendants in his civil action. The court rejected the doctors’ argument Chung could not recover on his claims against them because he did not name them in his administrative complaint. The court stated, “Both the EEOC and the doctors should have anticipated that Chung would name in his suit those who denied him the promotions mentioned in the charge. Therefore, Chung’s charge supplied an adequate basis for his Title VII claims against the doctors.” ( 667 F.2d at p. 792 .)

The case before us is more like Chung than White v. North Louisiana Corp. (W.D. La. 1979) 468 F.Supp. 1347 relied on by the majority. The individual defendants in this action are the chief of police, the director of the police department’s employee relations unit and the commander of the division where Valdez last worked before his resignation. As such they were directly or indirectly responsible for the police department’s alleged discriminatory *1064 practices relating to promotions, training opportunities and work assignments for Hispanic officers and for Valdez in particular. Their involvement in the police department’s practices was likely to have been revealed in the course of investigating Valdez’s administrative complaint and they could have anticipated that Valdez would name them in his suit. (Cf. Chung, supra, 667 F.2d at p. 792 .) Unlike the board president in White , neither Gates, Spencer, or Taylor filed a declaration in this case setting out facts to show they were not involved in the challenged personnel practices or showing how they were prejudiced by Valdez’s failure to name them in his administrative complaint. Of course, nothing prevents these police officials from filing such declarations in a subsequent motion for summary judgment.

This court should decline to adopt a flat rule a party not named in an administrative complaint cannot be named in subsequent litigation. Such a rule is inconsistent with the rule of liberal construction of complaints applied in title VII cases (see, e.g., Sanchez v. Standard Brands, Inc. (5th Cir. 1970) 431 F.2d 455 ) and adopted by California courts in cases arising under the Fair Employment and Housing Act. (See, e.g., Watson v. Department of Rehabilitation, supra, 212 Cal.App.3d at p. 1288 and cases cited therein.) Furthermore, such a strict rule will only harm victims of discrimination without providing unnamed parties any legitimate protection beyond that provided under the more flexible rules followed in cases such as Chung, supra.

Unless otherwise indicated, all statutory references are to the Government Code.

The purpose of the Fair Employment and Housing Act is “to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to . . . hold employment without discrimination . . . .” (§ 12920.) If the Department of Fair Employment and Housing determines it is necessary to bring an accusation against an employer, “[t]he case in support of the accusation shall be presented before the commission by the attorneys or agents of the department.” (§ 12969.) Clearly, administrative enforcement of the act was intended to function without the claimant having to hire a lawyer to pursue the claim.