Workers receive ‘big deal’ decision

Pa. Supreme Court ruling opens door for employees with discrimination claims

HARRISBURG — A Lehigh County woman’s claim that she was fired for speaking out about discrimination against a coworker led to a recent state Supreme Court decision that upends decades of Pennsylvania employment law.

Karen Harrison sued Health Network Laboratories and its owner, Lehigh Valley Health Network, in 2016 under Pennsylvania’s Whistleblower Law, alleging she was fired from her job as a manager at the lab in retaliation for reporting another manager’s abusive, discriminatory and harassing conduct toward a co-worker.

A Lehigh County judge dismissed the suit, saying Harrison couldn’t pursue the retaliation claim without first bringing it to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, which for 30 years has been held by courts as the mandatory first stop for workers claiming discrimination.

The state Supreme Court ruled in Harrison’s case June 16, finding the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act does not require aggrieved workers to take claims to the HRC if they can make their case under the Whistleblower Law.

“It’s a big deal for Pennsylvania employees,” said David Deratzian, who represents Harrison. “It kind of shakes the ground that the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act is the only way to go.”

Other attorneys who handle

workplace discrimination and whistleblower cases called the decision surprising.

“It is not something that I would have anticipated or expected,” said Bethlehem attorney John Harrison, who is not related to the plaintiff in the case.

Steven Hoffman, who represents Health Network Laboratories and LVHN, said his clients were disappointed with the decision but noted that Harrison must still prove her whistleblower claim.

“It’s only a procedural issue and we fully expect to be vindicated when the case proceeds,” Hoffman said.

While the 6-1 ruling does open new avenues for workers to file retaliation claims, John Harrison said it would be limited to scenarios where someone suffered retaliation for standing up to discrimination against someone else. Further limiting the decision, the Whistleblower Law applies only to organizations that receive public money.

Though the decision is limited, it opened the door to the possibility of significant change and highlighted long-standing issues with the Human Relations Act.

Three justices said they would have gone further, allowing anyone with a discrimination claim under the Human Relations Act to go directly to court, if they could make the claim under not only the Whistleblower Law but any law that makes discrimination illegal.

Chief Justice Thomas Saylor wrote in a separate concurring opinion joined by two colleagues that a 1989 decision misinterpreted the Human Relations Act as the exclusive remedy for discrimination claims. The question centered on the meaning of HRA’s statement that the right to be free from discrimination “shall be enforceable as set forth in this act.”

The court in 1989 substituted the word “vindicated” for “enforceable,” and concluded the Legislature intended for the right to be free from discrimination to be enforced exclusively under the HRA. That has been the interpretation Pennsylvania courts have followed for three decades.

“The word that the General Assembly actually employed, however — enforceable — is distinct from ‘enforced,’ and it simply does not carry the same connotation of exclusivity,” Saylor wrote, concluding the HRA wasn’t intended to be the only course of action for people who suffered discrimination.

Deratzian, Karen Harrison’s attorney, said it’s significant that with three justices taking that position, the court was one vote short of giving workers the option of bypassing the Human Relations Commission with any discrimination claim.

“In the right case, you might get that result and that would be a huge deal,” Deratzian said.

Hoffman agreed that litigants in similar cases are likely to cite this decision in the future.

“My guess is it’s a signal for the next person in the next case,” Hoffman said.

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act was passed in 1955 to bar discrimination in employment, housing, education and public accommodation on the basis of race, color, religious creed, ancestry, age or national origin. It also created the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, which enforces the act and investigates claims in cooperation with federal agencies.

The Human Relations Act gives the commission a year to determine whether it will act on a complaint before workers can sue in court. Deratzian called that a waste of time and said bypassing the commission would be an advantage for workers with discrimination claims.

“In most cases, the Human Relations Commission doesn’t really do anything,” he said.

In recent years, the commission has been rocked by lawsuits, low morale, a backlog of cases and allegations of racism and discriminatory practices against its former Chairman Gerald S. Robinson.

The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2016 reported employees’ claims that the commission was gutted under Robinson, who some accused of using slurs and exhibiting racial animus. Robinson, who is black, called the accusations idiotic, attributing them to ex-employees with “an ax to grind.”

Executive Director Chad Dion Lassiter, who was appointed in 2018, did not respond to The Morning Call’s questions.

The commission received 1,182 cases and resolved 1,285 in the 2018-19 fiscal year, according to its annual report. It accepted 41 cases after finding probable cause of violations and closed 690 without such a finding. The remainder settled or were taken to court once the one-year waiting period expired. The average age of a case on the docket was about 21 months, according to the report.

Most cases are also filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which can choose to do its own investigation or defer to state agencies.

Hoffman, the lawyer for Health Network Laboratories and LVHN, said the commission provides an efficient alternative to the costly processes of litigation and discovery, where workers and employers can have their cases investigated and reviewed by an independent third party.

“Only when that investigation and conciliation process no longer works, then it is time to go to the courts,” he said.

Karen Harrison’s case will return to Lehigh County Court to resolve her retaliation claim.

Morning Call reporter Peter Hall can be reached at 610-820-6581 or peter.hall@mcall.com.