Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Page 3
Court of Appeal:
No Disability Discrimination Where Malady Is Undisclosed
Hoffstadt Declares Target Corporation Cannot Be Imputed With Knowledge Where Symptoms Did Not Render It ‘Obvious’ That Employee Suffers From Disease; Says Supervisor’s Non-Expert Speculation Does Not Suffice
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal for this district has affirmed a grant of summary judgment in favor of Target Corporation in a suit by a man who was fired by the company based on its policy against tolerating workplace violence, holding that the defendant did not commit disability discrimination given that the employee never revealed that he suffers from bipolar disorder and objective manifestations of the disease did not tip the employer off.
Presiding Justice Brian M. Hoffstadt of Div. Two authored the opinion, filed Thursday. It affirms a decision by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Thomas D. Long in an action by Daniel Husband who had worked in Target’s store in Burbank.
Husband brought his action under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”), alleging discrimination based on his mental disability.
Hoffstadt queried:
“When an employee has not disclosed his disability to his employer, under what circumstances will the employer be charged with knowledge of that disability (and hence potentially liable under FEHA)?”
The answer, he said, is that the fact of the disability must be “obvious” based on the symptoms. He asked, with specific application to Husband:
“[I]s an employer charged with knowledge that an employee suffers from an undisclosed diagnosis of bipolar disorder because, on two occasions, the employee was unusually ‘aggressive’ and made ‘irrational’ comments that caused his supervisor to be ‘concerned for his...mental state’?”
He responded to the question he posed:
“We hold that the answer is no, as a matter of law, and accordingly affirm the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for the employer.”
On June 9, 2022, Husband came to the Burbank store as a customer and blew up at an employee, using profanity, and on July 7 of that year, at work, he became visibly upset, recounted that he had been hitting himself in the head, and shouted at a co-worker.
Husband insisted in his opening brief on appeal that Target did know of his disability because, on July 7, his supervisor, Daniel Abts, sent him home, and emailed three managers saying that he was concerned as to Husband’s “personal safety and mental state.” The next day, the brief notes, Abts sent a second email to the managers relating that Husband had come to work in a distraught state, that he had recommended the employee go to a hospital, and that Husband “was having trouble discerning truth from reality.”
The brief, signed by mid-Wilshire attorney Joseph S. Socher, maintains:
“Thus, it was clear to Husband’s supervisors at Target that he was suffering from a mental health episode during this time and needed medical intervention.”
Hoffstadt wrote: “The pertinent standard for imputing knowledge in this context turns on the ‘reasonable’—that is, an objective—interpretation of the observed facts, and that objective analysis demonstrates that there are multiple, potential reasons for plaintiffs behavior; as a result, a diagnosis of mental illness is not the only reasonable interpretation of that behavior. To give controlling weight to one co-worker’s untrained, subjective ‘personal opinion,’ as plaintiff suggests, would make the standard for imputing knowledge—and hence the employer’s liability under FEHA—turn on the vagaries of the nature of the workplace, the co-worker’s knowledge (or lack of knowledge) of mental illnesses, and the co-worker’s willingness to speculate….”
He added that under case law, “knowledge of a disability has not been imputed based on an employer’s observation of ‘erratic’ behavior” and “plaintiff’s two incidents of erratic and irrational behavior were insufficient to impart knowledge of a mental disability to Target.”
The case is Husband v. Target Corporation, B342334
Representing Target were Mandana Massoumi and David J. Kim of Seyfarth Shaw’s Century City office and Phillip J. Ebsworth of its Sacramento office.
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