Lawler v. Mountblanc North America, LLC, et al, No. 11-16206 (9th Cir. 2013)
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Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of her former employer, Montblanc, and its President and CEO, Jan-Patrick Schmitz. The court concluded that Montblanc demonstrated that plaintiff could not perform the essential functions of store manager by offering her admissions that her disability prevented her from performing any work and plaintiff, in response, offered no submission establishing a triable issue of fact. Therefore, summary judgment on plaintiff's disability discrimination claim under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), Cal. Gov't Code 12940(a), was proper. Because plaintiff pointed to no evidence that would raise a triable issue of whether Montblanc's true reason for terminating her employment was discriminatory, the court affirmed summary judgment on the retaliation claim under section 12940(h). Further, Schmitz's conduct during a store visit did not constitute harassment under section 12940(j). Finally, plaintiff's claim of intentional infliction of emotion distress failed where Schmitz's conduct could not be characterized as exceeding all bounds of that tolerated in a civilized community and plaintiff's alleged emotional distress was not "severe." Accordingly, the court affirmed the dismissal of all of plaintiff's claims.
Court Description: California Law. The panel affirmed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of an employer based on the former employee’s failure to present a genuine issue of material fact as to each of her four claims under California state law. The panel held that plaintiff failed to present a genuine issue of material fact as to her claims for: disability discrimination under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act; retaliation under the Act; harassment under the Act; and intentional infliction of emotional distress under California state tort law.
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