Attempt to Shorten Statute of Limitations in FEHA Action Rejected

The California Court of Appeal determined yesterday that employers and employees may not agree to shorten the deadline for filing claims under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). The court stated that it was not making such a sweeping pronouncement, but the text of the opinion and the nature of FEHA cases make it very likely that future attempts to shorten the statute of limitations on a FEHA claim will be a waste of time or worse. In this new case, the plaintiff/employee filed a complaint alleging three FEHA claims and two common law claims. The claims were timely under the applicable statutes of limitations, but filed later than required under an agreement between the parties found in the plaintiff’s employment application. The defendant/employer moved for judgment on the pleadings based on the application’s statement that “any claim or lawsuit . . . must be filed no more than six (6) months after the date of the employment action,” and that the employee waived “any statute of limitations to the contrary.” The trial court granted the employer’s motion and dismissed the case. The employee appealed. The appellate court disagreed with the trial court and reversed the dismissal. The court seemed overly concerned with the public policy elements of FEHA and the dubious notion that FEHA claims benefit the public at large as much as the individual employee. It cited to flowery Legislative language about the public benefit in an effort to support the notion that contracting parties should not be able to alter the limitation period in FEHA. One could certainly argue that there is less public benefit and that the cited legislative language was included for the Legislature’s self-importance. Fortunately, the court noted that prior judicial decisions had established a basic rule for parties that agree to a shortened limitation period: Courts will uphold a shortened limitations period if the shorter period is reasonable in that it gives sufficient time for the effective pursuit of the judicial remedy. Unfortunately, the court concluded that six months was unreasonable. The court went to great lengths to explain why a six month statute of limitations was unreasonable in FEHA cases. It certainly had some good supporting arguments on the facts of this case, but it seemed so eager to find the parties’ agreement unenforceable that it failed to even discuss the fact that six months might be more than ample time to effectively pursue and resolve an employment discrimination case on other facts. The seemingly one-sided analysis and the resulting language in the opinion will certainly hamper future agreements between employers and employees designed to more efficiently and rapidly resolve disputes. The full opinion can be found at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A136028.PDF