Under California’s Fair Work and Real Estate Act (” FEHA”), companies normally are strictly responsible for a manager’s harassment, even where the company is uninformed of the manager’s supposed bad actions. While this left numerous companies without much option in case managers misbehaved, a just recently released Court of Appeal choice provides some hope. In Atalla v. Rite Help Corp., 2023 WL 2521909 (Cal. Ct. App. Feb. 24, 2023), the Court of Appeal developed limitations on the degree to which companies can be delegated conduct coming from workers’ individual relationships and after-hours conduct.
Hanin Atalla (” Atalla”), a pharmacist, took legal action against Rite Help declaring that Erik Lund (” Lund”), a Rite Help district supervisor, had actually sexually bothered her, to name a few claims. Atalla’s harassment claim came from a series of late-night text including a video of Lund participating in a sexual act and an image of his genital areas. Rite Help did not disagreement that Lund had actually sent out the raunchy interactions, however kept that it was not responsible for harassment based upon Lund’s conduct since he was not acting in his capability as a manager at the time. The high court gave summary judgment to Rite Help on Atalla’s unwanted sexual advances claim, to name a few, and Atalla appealed.
The Court of Appeal verified summary judgment for Rite Help since it concurred that the supposed harassment took place when Lund was not acting in his capability as a manager. In reaching this conclusion, the Court depend on proof showing an enduring individual relationship in between Atalla and Lund that preceded their working relationship. Atalla had actually affirmed that her pre-existing relationship with Lund “was completely inapplicable to her work” at Rite Help, and there was proof developing that, both prior to and after Lund and Atalla collaborated, they “texted about a series of subjects, thoroughly and often, consisting of … worrying household, trips, food and dining, alcohol and drinking, individuals and family pets, workout, along with chit chat about work,” and they “routinely satisfied for coffee and lunch, got together for vacation and birthday suppers, and were familiarized with each other’s partners.”
When it comes to the text exchange in concern, the Court concluded that it was not job-related and, hence, might not form the basis of a harassment claim versus Rite Help. The Court kept in mind that Lund sent out the picture and video while intoxicated at a hotel late at night and Atalla got the texts at her house. Although Atalla argued that Lund’s specific images followed a conversation of work, Lund’s text asking how Atalla’s work day had actually gone was a “typical questions for a buddy.” Appropriately, the Court of Appeal discussed that Rite Help was not strictly responsible since Rite Help showed that the harassment took place beyond work which Atalla a prepared individual in the individual relationship that pre-existed Atalla’s work.
Eventually, while Atalla offers some defense for companies when workers participate in simply individual conduct, inapplicable to work, companies still will deal with liability for job-related actions by managers. Appropriately, companies need to talk to skilled work counsel concerning training and other ways to make sure that their managers’ job-related conduct does not lead to liability.