In Beltran v. Hard Rock Hotel Licensing, Inc., 2023 WL 8430581 (Cal.App. 4 Dist., 2023), the court reversed a decision granting the defendant summary judgment on plaintiff’s claim for sexual harassment under California law.[1]NOTE: I am not licensed to practice law in California. Accordingly, this blog post is not intended to be a summary of, or in any way convey advice regarding, the substance or applicability of California law.
From the decision:
The trial court relied heavily on case law decided before [Cal. Gov’t Code §] 12923 was adopted. This failed to take into account several key principles, including the definition of a hostile work environment, the clarification that “[a] single incident of harassing conduct is sufficient to create a triable issue regarding the existence of a hostile work environment if the harassing conduct … created an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment,”6 and the instruction that “[h]arassment cases are rarely appropriate for disposition on summary judgment.” (§ 12923, subds. (a), (b), (e).)
Instead, the trial court relied on older cases that did not take these principles into account, such as Mokler v. County of Orange (2007) 157 Cal.App.4th 121, 68 Cal.Rptr.3d 568, where the court concluded that three incidents of harassment over five weeks was not severe and pervasive, and Fisher v. San Pedro Peninsula Hospital (1989) 214 Cal.App.3d 590, 609, 262 Cal.Rptr. 842, which stated that “plaintiff must show a concerted pattern of harassment of a repeated, routine or a generalized nature.” These cases are no longer good law when it comes to determining what conduct creates a hostile work environment in the context of a motion for summary judgment or adjudication. (§ 12923; CACI No. 2524.)
Applying the standards set forth in section 12923, we conclude PSH and HRH failed to meet their burden to demonstrate that no actionable sexual harassment occurred. There was evidence of multiple incidents of conduct over a period of months, including leering gestures, hand massages, and inappropriate questions, which culminated with the slapping or groping incident. This evidence is more than sufficient to raise a triable issue of fact as to whether “a reasonable person who was subjected to the harassing conduct would find that the conduct so altered working conditions as to make it more difficult to do the job.” (CACI No. 2524.)
Based on this, the court concluded that “summary adjudication should not have been granted as to Beltran’s cause of action for sexual harassment.”
| ↩1 | NOTE: I am not licensed to practice law in California. Accordingly, this blog post is not intended to be a summary of, or in any way convey advice regarding, the substance or applicability of California law. |
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