LIIKALA v. BROOKALE SENIOR LIVING COMMUNITIES, INC.

Background

Anastasia Liikala alleges that her former employers, Brookdale Senior Living, Inc. and Brookdale Senior Living Communities, Inc., violated California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) by unlawfully terminating her after she requested medical leave. She also alleges that Sedgwick Claims Management, Inc., Brookdale’s third-party leave administrator, participated in the alleged violations.

Liikala alleges that she requested medical leave related to anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder in October 2019 and later sought to extend that leave. The complaint describes conflicting communications about whether she had been terminated, was on approved leave, or had resigned. Her personnel file allegedly stated that she was terminated on October 13, 2019, for abandoning or walking off the job.

Liikala filed a complaint against Brookdale and Sedgwick with the California Civil Rights Department on June 3, 2022. The agency issued a right-to-sue notice that same day. On May 31, 2023, Liikala filed a lawsuit in California state court against the Brookdale defendants and unnamed Doe defendants. After the case was removed to federal court, she filed an amended complaint adding Sedgwick on October 7, 2023.

The amended complaint asserts seven FEHA-related causes of action: disability discrimination, failure to provide reasonable accommodations, failure to engage in an interactive process, interference with rights under the California Family Rights Act, retaliation, failure to prevent discrimination and retaliation, and aiding and abetting.

Sedgwick’s Motion

Sedgwick moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal when a complaint does not adequately state a legal claim. Sedgwick argued that the claims against it were barred by the statute of limitations because Sedgwick was not named until more than one year after the right-to-sue notice. The parties agreed that the claims against Sedgwick were timely only if the amended complaint related back to the original complaint’s filing date.

Court’s Analysis

The court explained that a statute-of-limitations defense generally cannot be decided on a motion to dismiss unless the time bar is apparent from the complaint itself. A plaintiff survives such a motion by alleging facts showing a possible factual dispute affecting whether the defense applies.

The court considered both federal and California relation-back rules. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c), an amendment naming a new defendant may relate back only if the defendant received notice within the federal service period and knew, or should have known, that it would have been named but for a mistake about the proper party’s identity. Liikala did not argue that she satisfied those federal requirements.

The court instead considered California Code of Civil Procedure section 474. That provision allows a plaintiff who is ignorant of a defendant’s name to sue a fictitious Doe defendant and later amend the pleading when the defendant’s identity is discovered. California law also recognizes that a plaintiff may be considered ignorant not only when unaware of a person’s identity, but also when unaware of facts or law establishing a cause of action against that person.

Liikala alleged that she did not know she had a valid legal basis for suing Sedgwick when she filed the original complaint. She alleged that she became aware of the agency-based claim after the California Supreme Court’s August 21, 2023 decision in Raines v. U.S. Healthworks Medical Group, which clarified that an employer’s agent may fall within FEHA’s definition of an employer and may be directly liable for FEHA violations when performing FEHA-regulated activities.

The court held that these allegations were sufficient under California law to support relation back. It also rejected Sedgwick’s argument that Liikala failed to satisfy section 474’s technical requirements by retaining the Doe defendants in the amended federal complaint and failing to identify Sedgwick in the summons as a replacement for a Doe defendant. Relying on Ninth Circuit precedent, the court explained that California’s substantive Doe relation-back rule remains available after removal, while procedural matters after removal are governed by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure rather than California’s procedural requirements.

Disposition

Judge P. Casey Pitts denied Sedgwick’s motion to dismiss. The order did not decide whether Sedgwick ultimately violated FEHA or whether Liikala will prevail on her claims; it decided only that the statute-of-limitations defense did not require dismissal at the pleading stage.