Case Summary

4796 Allegations that a fellow employee engaged in a month-long, continual campaign to make plaintiff's work life miserable could result in a reasonable inference that it was a continuation of his previous harassment about her sexual orientation and may bring the previous sexual-orientation harassment within the period of limitations under the continuing violation rule, even if it actually occurred outside the limitations period; conduct allegedly consisting of the fellow employee's "constantly" blocking access to plaintiff's work station and jamming the wheels of her equipment could justify the conclusion the harassing conduct was not trivial; since the earlier harassment did not stop, or lead to plaintiff's resignation, or put her on notice that further efforts to end it would be futile it had not achieved a degree of permanence sufficient to prevent application of the continuing violation rule; while an individual co-employee might be liable for his own acts of harassment, s/he cannot be liable for retaliatory termination; it was found that plaintiff failed to sufficiently support a claim for punitive damages.

DOMINGUEZ v WAMU BANK (Sexual Orientation) 168 CA4 714 [See: GovC 12900 etseq; Morgan v Regents 88 CA4 52, T/AT 5/01; Accardi v Superior Court 17 CA4 341, T/AT 9/93; Richards v CH2M 26 C4 798, T/AT 9/01]