In Cornell v. Berkeley Tennis Club, the Court of Appeal considered various causes of action brought by a former employee of Berkeley Tennis Club, including claims for disability discrimination, failure to accommodate her disability, and disability harassment under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). Plaintiff had worked at the Club for over 15 years, receiving glowing reviews throughout the term of her employment. Shortly before Plaintiff’s termination, Plaintiff began working under a new manager, who decided that all employees of the Club would be required to wear uniforms. Plaintiff, who is severely obese, alerted her manager that she would require a larger size uniform. Not only did the manager not order a uniform suitable for Plaintiff’s size, he later lied to upper management by claiming that Plaintiff was the only employee who refused to wear the uniform, and that she had consistently refused to cooperate. Furthermore, the manager made numerous derogatory comments about Plaintiff’s weight, hired another employee and paid her a higher wage for performing the same work as Plaintiff, and significantly reduced Plaintiff’s hours and job duties. During a board meeting, the manager discovered a tape recorder on the top shelf of a portable bar, an area where cleaning supplies were also stored. The President of the Board decided to hide at the conclusion of the meeting and witnessed Plaintiff reach into the top shelf area of the portable bar. Despite the manager being unable to produce the tape recorder that he allegedly had stolen from his bag, Plaintiff was pressured repeatedly to resign. Plaintiff was ultimately terminated.
In order to prevail on disability-related claims under the FEHA, a plaintiff must be able to show that they have a disability or that their employer perceived them to have a disability. The Court cited prior case precedent in stating that a person who asserts a violation of the FEHA on the basis of his or her weight must present evidence that their obesity has a physiological cause, which encompasses genetics. The trial court held that Plaintiff had not presented sufficient evidence to create a triable issue as to whether she can be classified as disabled under the FEHA; summary judgment was granted to the Club on all of the FEHA claims. The Court disagreed, holding that summary judgment should not have been granted because the Club failed to provide evidence that Plaintiff did not have, and could not reasonably obtain evidence, that her obesity had a physiological cause. Moving specifically to the discrimination claim, the Court declared there to be a triable issue as to whether management legitimately believed that Plaintiff planted the recorder and the Court found evidence to suggest that the manager, contrary to his assertions, did participate in her firing. Furthermore, the manager’s derogatory statements and the various decisions he made that negatively affected Plaintiff’s job duties collectively provided evidence that he harbored discriminatory animus towards Plaintiff. All in all, the Court held that the manager’s participation in Plaintiff’s firing, evidence of discriminatory animus, and evidence that the Club’s proffered reason for firing Plaintiff was false created a triable issue of fact whether the Club intentionally discriminated against her; therefore, Plaintiff’s claim should have survived summary judgment.
As for Plaintiff’s other claims, the Court held that the harassment claim should have survived summary judgment, but agreed with the lower court’s decision to dismiss the reasonable accommodation claim. A harassment claim turns on the presence of repeated conduct sufficiently pervasive to create a hostile or abusive workplace environment for a given employee because of their disability. Here, the Court stated that the manager’s occasional comments alone were not sufficiently pervasive to create a hostile work environment; however, when combined with his various actions that reduced Plaintiff’s job duties, there was a triable issue of fact whether the manager’s behavior constituted impermissible harassment. Finally, the Court noted that when a plaintiff claims that their obesity is an actual physical disability, as alleged by Plaintiff in the current case, an employer must be aware that the disability has an underlying physiological cause in order for them to have a duty to provide reasonable accommodation. Therefore, the lower court properly granted summary judgment to the Club on the reasonable accommodation claim.
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