Velarde v. DMV

Background

Luz Velarde sued the Department of Motor Vehicles under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging discrimination based on race and national origin. The court had previously dismissed former supervisor Carrie Stanton as a defendant. The DMV moved for summary judgment, which is a ruling entered when the evidence shows no genuine dispute about a fact important to the case and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law.

Velarde alleged that Stanton made statements about disliking “her kind” and directed Velarde not to speak Spanish in the office. Velarde also alleged problems involving overtime pay, insurance paperwork, physical-therapy appointments, vacation scheduling, a 2015 notice concerning absence without leave, and actions in 2016 that resulted in her separation from work. Velarde challenged the 2016 separation before the California Department of Human Resources, and an administrative law judge ordered her reinstated after DMV’s counsel failed to appear at the hearing.

Timeliness and exhaustion

Velarde filed her charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on November 2, 2015. Title VII generally requires a charge to be filed within 180 days after the alleged unlawful employment action. Based on Velarde’s deposition testimony, the court found that the overtime-pay issues occurred in 2013–2014, the insurance-paperwork issue occurred in 2013, and the canceled physical-therapy appointments occurred in 2014. The court declined to credit a later declaration that gave only conclusory statements suggesting some incidents occurred in May or June 2015 because it contradicted her deposition testimony.

The court therefore granted the DMV’s motion for summary judgment as to the overtime-pay, insurance-paperwork, and canceled-physical-therapy claims, finding those claims time-barred. The court also disregarded a newly asserted allegation about interference with medical restrictions because Velarde had not included it in her charge, raised it during discovery, or provided supporting details.

The DMV argued that Velarde had not exhausted administrative remedies for the 2016 actions because she had not filed a new EEOC charge. Velarde argued that two letters she sent to the EEOC in 2016 supplemented her original charge. The court found that the letters barely qualified as a charge. It relied on Velarde’s self-represented status, the relationship between the 2016 actions and the theory in her original charge, the identification of the alleged perpetrator, and the letters’ descriptions of later actions involving her employment. The court also noted that the EEOC had not acknowledged receiving the letters and that they did not expressly state that Velarde intended to file an additional charge.

Adverse employment action and discriminatory intent

The court granted summary judgment as to the June 30, 2015 AWOL notice. An adverse employment action is an action that materially changes an employee’s compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment. The DMV sent the notice after Velarde’s first purported absence and warned that AWOL status would begin if she remained absent. Velarde addressed the situation before that occurred, and the court found that the AWOL determination was never implemented and did not materially affect her employment.

The court found a triable issue—a dispute that a jury could resolve—involving the 2016 actions. Viewing the evidence in Velarde’s favor, the court found a factual dispute about whether she was separated from work because of discriminatory intent. The court treated termination as an adverse employment action. It also found that Stanton’s statements could support an inference of discriminatory intent and that their meaning should be decided by a jury rather than on summary judgment.

Disposition

The court denied the DMV’s motion for summary judgment as to the 2016 actions only. The motion for summary judgment was otherwise granted.