Discriminated Against? Both the Staffing Agency and Your Assigned Workplace Are Likely on the Hook

Are you employed through a staffing agency? Do you have an employment discrimination case against the company where the staffing agency placed you? Companies love to dodge responsibility by saying that workers hired through staffing agencies aren’t employees. But they’re likely wrong.

In the recently issued case of Jimenez v. U.S. Cont'l Mktg., Inc. (2019) 41 Cal.App.5th 189, 197-98, the California Court of Appeals reminded companies that the “general principle—that an individual may be held to have more than one employer in the temporary-staffing context—has ‘long been recognized for the purposes of applying state and federal antidiscrimination laws.’” (quoting Bradley v. Dep’t of Corr. & Rehab. (2008) 158 Cal. App. 4th 1612, 1626).

Jimenez brought several claims under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA, which prohibits discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in the workplace) against both a staffing agency (Ameritemps) and her contracting employer (USCM). To determine whether the contracting employer was indeed Jimenez’s employer, the court held that “factors under the contractual control of the temporary-staffing agency (such as hiring, payment, benefits, and timesheets being handled by a temporary-staffing agency) are not given any weight in determining the employment relationship with respect to the contracting employer.” Jimenez, 41 Cal.App. at 193. In other words, the factors used to determine whether a staffing agency is someone’s employer are different from the factors used to determine whether a contracting employer is someone’s employer. Just because a staffing company oversees hiring, payment, benefits, and time-tracking does not mean the contracting employer is off the hook.

Why are the factors different? The factors that make a staffing agency someone’s employer are “outside the scope of the terms and conditions of the temporary employee’s employment with the contracting employer.” Jimenez, 41 Cal.App. at 193. Liability for harassment or discrimination under FEHA is “‘predicated” on allegations “‘involving the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment under the control of the employer[.]’” Id. (quoting Bradley v. Department of Corrections & Rehab. (2008) 158 Cal.App.4th 1612, 1629).

What matters when determining whether a contracting employer is responsible for alleged violations of FEHA is whether the employer exercised “direction and control” over the employee. Jimenez, 41 Cal.App. at 197. Examples of direction and control are whether the employee must obey instructions from the employer and whether the employer can fire the employee at any time. Id. Other examples the court cited were the fact that (1) Jimenez reported to an USCM employee; (2) she supervised both employees hired by USCM and employees hired through staffing agencies; (3) she was subject to USCM’s employee handbook; (4) she participated in company trainings and was able to use USCM’s clinic for on-the-job injuries; (5) she was subject to USCM’s disciplinary policies; and (6) USCM employees supervised and train (and are supervised and trained by) employees hired through staffing agencies. Id. at 199-200.

While the court declined to adopt a bright-line rule that every worker placed through a staffing agency is an employee of the contracting company, it did make clear that companies can’t dodge responsibility for discrimination and harassment that happens under their watch simply by pointing out that staffing agencies are responsible for the things staffing agencies are normally responsible for, namely hiring, payment, benefits, and time-tracking. A company will need to show that it did not exercise direction and control over the employee. This is a win for employees and a win for FEHA, whose purpose is “to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek and hold employment free from discrimination.” Id. at 71-72.

Bryan Schwartz Law has written about FEHA before. If you believe you are being discriminated against in the workplace and were hired through a staffing agency, contact Bryan Schwartz Law today.

Sixth Circuit Extends Title VII Protection to Transgender Employees

Joining the Second and Seventh Circuits, the Sixth Circuit issued a decision last month that extended Title VII protection for individuals who are transgender or transitioning in EEOC v. R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc., 884 F.3d 560 (6th Cir. 2018). 

The case involves Aimee Stephens, who had worked for nearly six years as a funeral director at R.G. and G.R. Harris Funeral Homes ("Funeral Home") when she informed the funeral home's owner that she is a transgender woman and intended to start dressing in appropriate business attire for women as part of her transition. The owner of the funeral home fired Stephens because of Aimee's transgender status, claiming that he would violate God's commands if he permitted funeral directors to deny their sex while representing the funeral home and would render him complicit "in supporting the idea that sex is a changeable social construct rather than an immutable God-given gift."

After her termination, Stephens filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. The EEOC determined that there was reasonable cause to believe that the Funeral Home fired Stephens due to her sex and gender identity. The EEOC also found the Funeral Home to be in violation of Title VII because it provided male employees with a clothing benefit which was denied to females. After the EEOC's informal conciliation process failed, the EEOC filed a complaint in federal court against the Funeral Home on September 25, 2014.

After the parties cross-moved for summary judgment, the District Court determined that there was direct evidence to support Stephen's claim of employment discrimination on the basis of her sex. However, the Court nevertheless found in the Funeral Home's favor, concluding that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) precludes the EEOC from enforcing Title VII against the Funeral Home, as doing so would substantially burden the Funeral Home's religious exercise, and the EEOC had failed to demonstrate that enforcing Title VII was the least restrictive way to achieve its presumably compelling interest “in ensuring that Stephens is not subject to gender stereotypes in the workplace in terms of required clothing at the Funeral home.”

The EEOC timely appealed, and Stephens moved to intervene in this appeal on January 26, 2017, after expressing concern that changes in policy priorities within the U.S. government might prevent the EEOC from fully representing Stephen's interests in the case. Stephen's request was granted by the Sixth Circuit on March 27, 2017. 

On appeal, the Sixth Circuit overturned the district court, finding that Stephens was protected by Title VII because the Funeral Home's decision to fire Stephens necessarily implicated Title VII's proscriptions against sex stereotyping, which is already protected under the court’s precedent in Smith v. City of Salem, 378 F.3d 566, 573 (6th Cir. 2004) and Supreme Court precedent from Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989). As to the employer’s free exercise of religion defense, the Sixth Circuit reversed the district court’s decision, holding that forcing the funeral home to comply with Title VII did not meet the RFRA’s substantial burden requirement, in part because the funeral home could not rely on the presumed gender biases of its customers to establish a substantial burden on its free exercise of religion. The ruling affirms that transgender individuals are protected by federal sex discrimination laws, and that religious belief does not give employers the right to discriminate against them.

California Mandates Employers Display Transgender Rights Poster in Workplace

On October 15, 2017, Governor Brown approved SB 396, a law that requires California employers with 5 employees or more to display a poster about transgender employment rights in a prominent and accessible location in the workplace with other mandatory workplace notices.

California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing recently issued the new mandatory poster, which addresses key topics such as the right of employees to use restrooms, locker rooms, and other similar facilities corresponding to their gender identity and to dress in accord with their gender identity and expression.

California's Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) prohibits employers from discriminating against any employee on the basis of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, or military and veteran status.

The poster follows regulations developed by the Fair Employment and Housing Council that went into effect in July 2017. SB 396 also requires mandatory sexual harassment prevention to include a component regarding gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation for California employers with at least 50 employees.

If you feel you have been subjected to unlawful discrimination or sexual harassment in the workplace, please contact Bryan Schwartz Law today.

Seventh Circuit Holds Federal Law Prohibits Employers From Firing People Because they are Gay

Before the full panel, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued a groundbreaking decision, holding 8-3 that workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation violates federal civil rights law.

The case involved a lesbian, Kimberley Hively, who sued Ivy Tech Community College when it denied her full-time employment and promotions because she was a lesbian and married to a woman. Hively began teaching at Ivy Tech in 2000 as a part-time adjunct professor. Between 2009 and 2014, Hively applied for at least six full-time positions, but each of these efforts were unsuccessful; even worse, in July 2014 her part-time contract with Ivy Tech was not renewed, resulting in her termination.

After she was terminated, Hively filed an administrative complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that Ivy Tech discriminated against her because of her sexual orientation and violated her rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. After the trial court dismissed the case, the Seventh Circuit initially affirmed the the trial court's decision based on decades of case law that held sexual orientation was not a protected category under Title VII. Hively v. Ivy Tech Cmty. Coll., 830 F.3d 698 (7th Cir. 2016). 

Before the Seventh Circuit's full panel, Chief Judge Diane Wood, writing for the majority, brought new life into analyzing claims of sexual orientation discrimination under Title VII. The court framed the main question of the case as a question of statutory interpretation: what does it mean to discriminate on the basis of sex, and in particular, are actions taken on the basis of sexual orientation  a subset of actions taken on the basis of sex?

Guided by the U.S. Supreme Court's approach in a related case addressing whether Title VII covered sexual harassment inflicted by a man on a male victim (Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S. 75 (1998)), the Seventh Circuit acknowledged that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation may not have been the principal evil Congress was concerned with when it passed Title VII. The Seventh Circuit nonetheless found that "statutory prohibitions often go beyond the principal evil to cover reasonably comparable evils, and it is ultimately the provisions of our laws rather than the principal concerns of our legislators by which [courts] are governed." Id. at 79-80. The court also acknowledged that Title VII has been understood to cover far more than the simple decision of an employer not to hire a woman simply because of her gender.

Hively framed her argument for why she should be covered by Title VII under two approaches: (1) a simple comparison isolating Hively's sex and the significance it played in her employer's decision; and (2) relying on Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), which found that the Fourteenth Amendment of the constitution protects interracial marriages, holding that Title VII protects Hively's right to associate intimately with a person of the same sex. 

Under the first approach, the court found that if Hively had been a man married to a woman, and everything else would have stayed the same, Ivy Tech would not have refused to promote her and would not have fired her. The court stated that "any discomfort, disapproval, or job decision based on the fact that the complainant - man or woman - dresses differently, speaks differently, or dates and marries a same-sex partner, is a reaction purely and simply based on sex," falling within Title VII's prohibition against sex discrimination. 

Addressing the second theory of discrimination presented by Hively, the court, relying on decades of cases holding that Title VII prohibits discrimination based on the race with whom a person associates, found that Ivy Tech's discrimination against Hively based on the sex of the person she associated with is also prohibited under the act. 

The court concluded with a clear holding: a person alleging that he or she experienced employment discrimination on the basis of his or her sexual orientation has put forth a case of sex discrimination for Title VII purposes. 

This is a landmark decision for the LGBTQ community, extending federal employment protections in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, which previously had state laws that only prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation with regards to state employment. This decision will now cover all private and public employers subject to Title VII. And, this will hopefully lead to other U.S. Circuit Courts revisiting this issue and expanding employment protections across the country for the LGBTQ community.

In California, the state's Fair Employment and Housing Act and Unruh Civil Rights Act have explicitly protected sexual orientation and gender identity from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations for many years. Last year, California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing became the first state civil rights agency to issue guidance to employers regarding transgender employees.

If you have experienced discrimination based upon your sexual orientation, and need help, contact Bryan Schwartz Law.

Eleventh Circuit Rules that Dreadlocks Not Protected Under Discrimination Law

In EEOC vs. Catastrophe Management Systems, the Eleventh Circuit held that an employer with a policy that prohibits "excessive" hairstyles is permitted to reject an applicant with dreadlocks, even though the policy would tend to target African American employees.

 

The EEOC sued Catastrophe Management Systems on behalf of Chastity Jones, a black job applicant whose job offer was rescinded after she refused to cut off her dreadlocks. Jones applied to CMS through an online application and was selected for an in-person interview. Jones attended the interview dressed in a business suit, wearing her hair in short dreadlocks. After the interview, Jones joined several other applicants in a room where they were all told they were hired.

  

Unfortunately, the good news for Jones was short-lived. When she later met with CMS' human resources to complete hiring paperwork, the Human Resource Manager told Jones she could not be hired if she kept her dreadlocks. Jones asked why and the manager responded with "they tend to get messy, although I'm not saying yours are, but you know what I am talking about." Jones refused to cut her dreads, and CMS rescinded the offer.

 

At the time of the conversation, CMS had a grooming policy that said “All personnel are expected to be dressed and groomed in a manner that projects a professional and businesslike image while adhering to company and industry standards and/or guidelines…No excessive hairstyles or unusual colors are acceptable.

  

The federal district court and the Eleventh Circuit rejected the EEOC's argument of discrimination, concluding the complaint rested on an improper argument that Title VII protected against discrimination based upon mutable characteristics. "Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of immutable characteristics, such as race, color, or natural origin," and a "hairstyle, even one more closely associated with a particular ethnic group, is a mutable characteristic" the court concluded.

 

It is worth underscoring that the EEOC did not argue that CMS' grooming rules had a disparate impact on African American employees. It is not clear whether or not the case's outcome would have been different if the employer had faced a disparate impact, as opposed to a disparate treatment, claim.

 

“This litigation is not about policies that require employees to maintain their hair in a professional, neat, clean or conservative manner,” said C. Emanuel Smith, regional attorney for the EEOC's Birmingham District Office. “It focuses on the racial bias that may occur when specific hair constructs and styles are singled out for different treatment because they do not conform to normative standards for other races.” Bryan Schwartz Law agrees.