Williams v. Genentech, 139 Cal. App. 4th 357 (2006)

Rochelle Williams, a receptionist at Genentech, was criticized by her supervisors for mishandling an incident involving company security. (Instead of following the company’s established procedure for dealing with a security alert, Williams spoke to a security officer in a “code of her own devise” – “Hurry and bring the pizzas” and “It was a sad movie.”) Williams allegedly suffered stress and the exacerbation of an existing medical condition (asthma) as a result of the criticism of her performance and then commenced a seven-month medical leave of absence. During her absence, Williams’s position was filled, and when she was ready to return, she was unable to obtain a different position at Genentech within 60 days and, consistent with company policy, was terminated as a result. Although Genentech used “floaters” to cover Williams’s job duties during the first 12 weeks of her leave, thereafter the Company decided to fill the position because the continued use of floaters adversely impacted the other receptionists and the business. Williams responded with a lawsuit alleging, among other things, race and disability discrimination, failure to reasonably accommodate a disability, failure to engage in a timely interactive process with Williams and violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act. The Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment in favor of Genentech, holding that although Williams had timely exhausted her administrative remedies (due to an alleged continuing violation by Genentech through the date of the termination), she failed to establish disability discrimination because at the time the decision was made to fill her position, she was “totally disabled” and, therefore, was unable to perform the essential functions of her job. Similarly, at the time her employment was terminated, Williams was not qualified to fill any other available position. As for the failure to accommodate claim, the Court held Williams was not entitled to an accommodation that (1) would have resulted in her being transferred to a different supervisor; (2) would have kept her position open until she returned to work; or (3) would have placed her in a vacant position upon her release to return to work. Finally, the Court concluded Genentech had sufficiently engaged in the interactive process with Williams and that the Unruh Act does not apply in the employment discrimination context. See also Gelfo v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 140 Cal. App. 4th 34, 43 Cal. Rptr. 3d 874 (2006) (employee with prior back injury was not actually (or regarded as) physically disabled but was entitled to possible reasonable accommodation and interactive process).

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Photo of Tony Oncidi Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including…

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily JournalThe Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is “brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up.” Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as “outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a “phenomenal strategist” and “one of the top employment litigators in the country.”

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law JournalBloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.