Salas v. United Airlines, Inc.

Background

Gladys C. Salas sued United Airlines, Inc. and supervisors Scott Prickett and Juliana Petani. She alleged that she worked as a United flight attendant for 28 years and was terminated after contracting COVID-19 and experiencing continuing symptoms, including extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, coughing, and “brain fog.” Her doctor said that her continuing symptoms could affect her ability to perform emergency duties and advised that she not return to work until December 1, 2020.

Salas alleged that Petani questioned her condition and suggested that she was exaggerating her restrictions. After Salas traveled to Florida using employee benefits while recovering, United terminated her, stating that she had abused company benefits. Salas alleged that this reason was a pretext and that United actually fired her because of her illness and need for additional recovery time. Her employment was covered by a collective bargaining agreement.

Salas asserted claims under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) for disability, age, and gender discrimination; retaliation; failure to provide reasonable accommodation; failure to engage in the required interactive process; harassment; and failure to investigate. She also asserted claims for wrongful termination in violation of public policy, defamation, and violation of California Business and Professions Code section 17200. She brought harassment and defamation claims against Petani and Prickett.

Rulings on the Claims

The court applied the standard for a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. At this stage, the court generally accepts well-pleaded factual allegations as true and asks whether they plausibly support a legal claim.

Age- and gender-based discrimination. The court dismissed Salas’s FEHA discrimination claims based on age and gender, with leave to amend. Although she alleged that she was a woman over 40, the court found that her allegations were conclusory and did not provide facts suggesting that United treated younger or male employees more favorably or otherwise acted with age- or gender-based discriminatory motive.

Disability discrimination. The court found that Salas adequately alleged a disability under FEHA. It explained that COVID-19-related conditions must be evaluated case by case. Salas alleged continuing neurological symptoms involving fogginess, confusion, and difficulty concentrating, and alleged that her doctor had safety concerns about her returning to work. The court concluded that these allegations plausibly described a limitation involving major life activities such as concentrating and thinking.

The court also found a plausible inference that United terminated Salas because of her disability. It relied on her allegations that United terminated her after she took time off and that Petani repeatedly suggested she was exaggerating her symptoms and should return to work. The disability-discrimination claim was therefore allowed to proceed.

Accommodation, interactive process, and retaliation. The court found that Salas adequately pleaded claims for failure to provide reasonable accommodation and failure to engage in the interactive process. It rejected, as a basis for those claims, the allegation that United should have allowed her to return to work sooner because she alleged that she could not perform essential safety duties until December 1. But the court found other allegations sufficient, including that United may have terminated her because of her leave and may not have considered further accommodation before terminating her.

The court also found that Salas adequately pleaded retaliation. It treated requesting an accommodation, including time off, as protected activity and found a plausible connection between that request and her termination.

Harassment. The court dismissed Salas’s harassment claim against all defendants, with leave to amend. It found that the allegations—principally two calls in which Petani allegedly questioned Salas’s symptoms and told her she should return to work—did not describe conduct severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment. The court also found that the age- and gender-based harassment allegations lacked supporting facts.

Derivative claims. The parties agreed that Salas’s wrongful-termination, failure-to-investigate, and unfair-competition claims were derivative of her FEHA claims. Because the court found that she adequately alleged disability discrimination, it allowed those related claims to proceed on that basis.

Defamation. The court dismissed Salas’s defamation claim, with leave to amend. It found that a claim based on her January 12, 2021 termination letter was untimely because Salas filed the case in July 2022, and that she had not adequately identified a timely publication of the alleged defamatory statements to a third party. The court also found her allegations too vague and did not reach the defendants’ other arguments, including privilege and whether the statements were opinions.

Collective-bargaining agreement preemption. United argued that the Railway Labor Act preempted Salas’s FEHA, wrongful-termination, and unfair-competition claims because they involved provisions of the collective bargaining agreement. The court rejected that argument. It held that the claims arose from FEHA and did not seek to enforce rights created solely by the agreement, and that considering the agreement or United’s workplace policies would not necessarily require interpreting a disputed contract term. The claims were therefore not preempted.

Disposition

The court granted in part and denied in part United’s motion to dismiss. It granted the motion brought by Prickett and Petani. The court dismissed the age- and gender-based discrimination claims, harassment claims, and defamation claim with leave to amend. The disability-discrimination claims and related derivative claims may proceed. The court allowed Salas 21 days from the date of the order to file an amended complaint.