South El Monte Employment Attorneys

A former employee, who was terminated by his mother-in-law CEO after his wife informed the CEO that he had a gun and was angry at co-workers, and that she had obtained a restraining order against him, brought a wrongful termination action against his former employer, claiming marital status discrimination and failure to conduct a reasonable investigation prior to his firing. The Superior Court granted summary judgment for the employer, and the employee appealed. The Court of Appeal held that: 1 allegation that former employee was terminated solely because of his status as the spouse of complaining employee and the son-in-law of the CEO did not establish prima facie case of marital status discrimination; 2 former employer had legitimate nondiscriminatory and nonpretextual reason to terminate former employee; and 3 former employer did not have any duty to investigate before discharging at-will former employee. In part the opinion states as follows:  Orlando claims Helen terminated his employment “solely because of his status as the spouse of the complaining employee and [her] son-in-law.” Thus, the motivation for his discharge, Orlando contends, was marital status discrimination, which is prohibited by FEHA. (Gov. Code, § 12940, subd. (a) [“It is an unlawful employment practice … [¶] [f]or an employer, because of … marital status … to bar or to discharge the person from employment.”].) Illustrative examples of marital discrimination include refusing “to hire unwed mothers because they were unwed, a refusal to hire single people because they were single, or the granting of maternity leave to married teachers only.” (Chen v. County of Orange (2002) 96 Cal.App.4th 926, 940 [116 Cal. Rptr. 2d 786] (Chen).)  While laws prohibiting marital status discrimination are “ ‘to prevent discrimination against classes of people,’ ” they do not extend to “ ‘ “the status of being married to a particular person.” ’ ” (Chen, supra, 96 Cal.App.4th at p. 944, quoting Bammert v. Labor and Industry Review Com. (1999) 232 Wis.2d 365 [606 N.W.2d 620, 625].) The latter context has been described as a “[c]onduit case,” occurring when a “plaintiff is the object of adverse action because of something about his or her spouse.” (Chen, at p. 943.) “Conduit cases may be divided into two categories: those in which the animus directed against the plaintiff’s spouse is itself unlawful, and those in which the animus is not unlawful.” (Ibid.) “[S]imple politics is the typical example” of a conduit case not based on wrongful animus—for example, where a store employee was fired because her husband was a police officer who had participated in the arrest of the store owner’s wife. (Id. at pp. 943–944, quoting Bammert, 606 N.W.2d at p. 621.) Such cases “have been universally met with rejection as valid marital status discrimination claims.” (Chen, at p. 943.) Orlando’s allegations are those of a “conduit case,” as his claim is predicated not on alleged animus towards the married state, itself, but on supposed particulars about his spouse. For example, Orlando asserts he was “treated in a disparate fashion from other employees of Respondent solely because of his status as the spouse of the complaining employee and son-in-law of Respondent’s CEO.” In other words, he claims he was treated differently not because he was married, but because he happened to be married to the CEO’s daughter—a political problem, not a marital discrimination problem. He similarly asserts that in terminating his employment, **669 the CEO “was attempting to influence and effect a Custody dispute involving her granddaughter.” This is simply an assertion the CEO sided with her daughter on a child custody issue—a family dynamics problem, not a marital discrimination problem. Indeed, as the trial court observed, Orlando was married to the CEO’s daughter for 14 years. Thus, “[i]f marital status were an issue, [Orlando] would have been terminated earlier. It was the identity of Ms. Nakai—not the marital status—that led to the discharge.” In short, while Orlando may have alleged that he was unfairly discharged on the basis of groundless or overblown accusations by his wife, he failed to allege a prima facie case of marital status discrimination.