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Cassista v. Community Foods Inc.9/2/1993
SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA
No. S028230
1993.CA.42499 ; 856 P.2d 1143; 5 Cal. 4th 1050; 22 Cal. Rptr. 2d 287
Decided: September 2, 1993.
TONI LINDA CASSISTA, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT,
v.
COMMUNITY FOODS, INC., ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND RESPONDENTS.
Superior Court of Santa Cruz County, No. 107688, John A. Marlo, Judge.
Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi and Stefanie M. Brown for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Joseph Posner, Pauline T. Kim, Jo Anne Frankfurt, John M. True III, Steven C. Owyang, Prudence Poppink, James F. Miller, Jr., Quackenbush & Quackenbush and William C. Quackenbush as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and Appellant.
Grunsky, Ebey, Farrar & Howell, Frederick H. Ebey and Leslie J. Karst for Defendants and Respondents.
Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, Paul Grossman, Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, Cecily A. Waterman, Thomas M. Peterson, Karen H. Peteros and Lucy C. Hodder as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Respondents.
Brad Seligman as Amicus Curiae.
Opinion by Arabian, J., expressing the unanimous view of the court.
Arabian
We granted review to consider whether the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA or Act) (Gov. Code, ยง 12900 et seq.) prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of a person's weight. We conclude that weight may qualify as a protected "handicap" or "disability" within the meaning of the FEHA if medical evidence demonstrates that it results from a physiological condition affecting one or more of the basic bodily systems and limits a major life activity. Because the plaintiff here adduced no evidence of this kind, we conclude that she failed to establish a prima facie case of employment discrimination.
I. FACTS
In the summer of 1987, Toni Linda Cassista (plaintiff) applied for one of three openings at Community Foods, a health food store in the City of Santa Cruz. Founded as a neighborhood collective in the 1970's, Community Foods normally employed 16 to 17 people. The duties to be performed by the prospective employees included running the cash register, stocking 35- to 50- pound bags of grain, carrying 50-pound boxes of produce, retrieving groceries from the warehouse, changing 55-gallon drums of honey, and carrying large crates of milk. To fill the vacancies, Community Foods sought people with grocery store, retail clerk, cashier and stocking experience. New employees could eventually become members of the collective with management and ownership interests.
Plaintiff is five feet four inches tall and, at the time she applied to Community Foods, weighed three hundred and five pounds. She had previously been employed in several restaurants, managed a sandwich shop and worked as an aide in nursing homes. Plaintiff heard about the openings at Community Foods though a friend who worked there; she was interested in the job because she believed that the collective shared her "political awareness of issues and consciousness and concerns regarding the community and the environment . . .."
The hiring process at Community Foods involved two steps. First, the applicant was interviewed by one or two members of the collective; next, those applicants who were not eliminated after the initial screening were called back for a more in-depth interview with the hiring committee. Plaintiff was one of eight applica
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