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Hobson v. Raychem Corp.6/25/1999
(Ordered published 7/14/99; order attached)
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
In this case Tracy Hobson (appellant) claims that her employer Raychem Corporation (Raychem) unlawfully discriminated against her because she suffered from a particular disease specified in both her administrative charge and in her complaint. Faced with summary judgment, appellant claimed that her disease was related to other, previously unmentioned, mental disabilities which she claimed Raychem had failed to accommodate. We therefore consider whether holistic theory extends to the law and procedure pertaining to claims of discrimination based upon disability. We conclude that the trial correctly determined that appellant has neither properly identified any condition qualifying as a matter of law as a protected disability nor alleged any act of discrimination by her former employer upon which she might base a claim. We will affirm.
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
On November 15, 1996, appellant filed her complaint alleging two causes of action. The first cause of action alleged discrimination based on disability, in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (Gov. Code, ยง 12940 et seq., hereinafter FEHA). The second cause of action alleged wrongful, constructive, termination in violation of public policy.
Raychem received a copy of the complaint and, on Christmas Eve, 1996, filed a petition for removal to the United States District Court. Counsel for Raychem filed an answer on behalf of Raychem in the United States District Court in January of 1997, and, subsequently, filed an answer on behalf of the individual defendant Mahshid Ghaffari (Ghaffari) in the San Mateo County Superior Court on July 18, 1997. Following a quarrelsome course of discovery, defendants filed a motion for summary judgment on August 28, 1997. The procedural events leading up to the hearing of the summary judgment motion were also contentious and are described more fully below.
Following oral argument on August 17, 1997, the court found no triable issue of fact relating to plaintiff's disability and ruled that as a matter of law plaintiff had failed to exhaust her administrative remedies by failing to initially claim any qualified mental disability, rather than the specific physical disability of ulcerative colitis alleged in her complaint. The nexus of plaintiff's factual allegations to her administrative charge and the procedural history of the case thus frames our inquiry into the correctness of the court's ruling on summary judgment.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Appellant began working for Raychem in January of 1989 as an administrative assistant. No issues are presented with reference to her work in her initial position of employment, which was apparently reviewed favorably by her manager in Raychem's Telecom Division.
In November of 1994, appellant was transferred to an administrative assistant 4 position in the Purchasing Division. This move was prompted by the elimination of her previous administrative assistant 3 position in the Telecom Division. In her new position, appellant spent her mornings working under the direction of Bill Warner, (and spent her afternoons reporting to Ghaffari).
In this new position, problems arose. Appellant's opening brief contends she had received accommodations for "her acknowledged physical, emotional and mental impairments" prior to her transfer to the administrative assistant 4 position. Appellant contends that only one of her new supervisors, Warner, was willing to continue to provide such accommodations and that the other supervisor, Ghaffari, was hostile to her requests.
It is undispu
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