Mofrad v. United Parcel Service, Inc.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California partially granted and partially denied UPS’s motion for summary judgment in an employment discrimination action brought by Cyrus Mofrad. The court denied summary judgment on Mofrad’s FEHA hostile work environment sexual-harassment claim, finding triable issues concerning the severity and objective and subjective offensiveness of unwanted physical contact by a coworker. The court rejected several alleged retaliatory employment actions and addressed claims involving leave, disability accommodations, and termination in a company-wide reduction in force.

Holdings

1. Multiple incidents of unwanted physical contact, including kisses, an attempted kiss, and approximately three hugs within three months, together with evidence of substantial emotional distress, created a triable issue as to whether the conduct was sufficiently severe to support a FEHA hostile-work-environment claim.
2. The evidence created triable issues as to whether Cartwright's conduct was objectively and subjectively offensive; the relative organizational positions of the parties did not require judgment for UPS as a matter of law.
3. Mofrad failed to establish a prima facie FEHA retaliation claim based on the alleged workplace actions or his termination because the alleged actions were not actionable adverse employment actions or lacked a causal connection to protected activity.
4. The failure-to-prevent claim failed to the extent it was based on retaliation but survived to the extent it was derivative of the surviving sexual-harassment claim.
5. UPS was entitled to summary judgment on the failure-to-accommodate and interactive-process claims because it approved Mofrad's leave requests and the accommodation request was made after the termination decision had already been made and communicated.
6. The ADA-based wrongful-termination claim failed because the underlying accommodation claim failed, while the FEHA-based wrongful-termination claim survived because the FEHA sexual-harassment claim survived.
7. The IIED claim was not resolved on summary judgment because the survival of the sexual-harassment claim created disputes concerning whether the alleged conduct was sufficiently outrageous and whether the Workers' Compensation Act barred the claim.
8. Punitive damages were unavailable on the record because Mofrad failed to present evidence that Apodaca or Harris was a corporate managing agent with substantial discretionary authority over significant aspects of UPS's business.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the evidence of multiple unwanted kisses, attempted kisses, and hugs created a triable issue on whether Cartwright's conduct was sufficiently severe, objectively offensive, and subjectively offensive to constitute a hostile work environment under FEHA.
2. Whether Mofrad established actionable adverse employment actions and a causal connection for his FEHA retaliation claims.
3. Whether Mofrad's failure-to-prevent harassment and retaliation claim survived to the extent it was derivative of surviving or defeated underlying claims.
4. Whether UPS failed to reasonably accommodate Mofrad or engage in the interactive process when it approved his leaves and denied his accommodation request after the RIF termination decision.
5. Whether Mofrad's FEHA- and ADA-based wrongful-termination claims survived summary judgment.
6. Whether Mofrad's IIED claim was preempted by the California Workers' Compensation Act or lacked evidence of outrageous conduct.
7. Whether Mofrad presented evidence that a UPS employee was a managing agent sufficient to support punitive damages.

Disposition

other