Wroblewski v. Lexington Gardens, Inc.
| Decision Date | 10 August 1982 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | , 47 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 644, 32 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 33,791 Judith WROBLEWSKI v. LEXINGTON GARDENS, INC., et al. |
Martha Stone, Hartford, with whom, on the brief, were Shelley Geballe, Stony Creek, and Donna Morris, New Haven, for appellant (plaintiff).
Richard W. Rutherford, with whom was Gregory B. Nokes, Stamford, for appellees (defendants).
Barbara C. Deinhardt, Hartford, submitted a brief as amicus curiae on behalf of the Coalition of Labor Union Women.
Before SPEZIALE, C. J., and PETERS, HEALEY, PARSKEY and ARMENTANO, JJ.
The principal issue in this case is whether an employer violates state fair employment statutes when its employment application includes a medical history form asking certain questions of women only. The plaintiff, who declined to complete such a form, was subsequently denied employment and filed a complaint charging sex discrimination with Connecticut's commission on human rights and opportunities. On this appeal the plaintiff challenges the trial court's decision that the commission's hearing examiner correctly found no evidence of sex discrimination but incorrectly found jurisdiction over two parties to the complaint.
The factual history of this case began in 1974, when the plaintiff, Judith Gail Wroblewski, applied for a position with Lexington Gardens, Inc., a new plant store scheduled to open at the end of the year in Glastonbury. After interviews with Robert White, at that time assistant to the president of Lexington Gardens, and Craig Cavanaugh, manager of the Glastonbury store, the plaintiff filled out a bonding application, a tax form, an employee status sheet, and the disputed medical history form. The plaintiff chose not to complete the section of that form marked "Women," 1 although her private physician who performed the preemployment physical examination wrote "healthy female" in the section marked "physician's summary." Shortly after the plaintiff submitted her medical form, it was returned to her on November 4 by a company nurse with a cover letter 2 indicating that the omitted questions were "a necessary part of the exam, and must be completed." On November 5, 1974, the plaintiff filed her complaint with the commission charging Pepperidge Farm, Inc., the corporation from whose headquarters the form was returned, with sex discrimination in violation of General Statutes § 31-126(a). Three days later, a commission investigator met with James Morgan, the director of personnel for Pepperidge Farm, to discuss the plaintiff's complaint. After their meeting, Morgan suggested to officials of Lexington Gardens that they check the plaintiff's references. On December 3 she received a letter from the president of Lexington Gardens refusing her employment without explanation. The plaintiff subsequently amended her complaint to include two additional parties, Campbell Soup Company and Lexington Gardens, and a claim of retaliatory refusal to hire in violation of General Statutes § 31-126(d).
After evidentiary hearings in March, April, and May of 1976, a commission hearing examiner concluded that the amended complaint properly cited Campbell Soup and Lexington Gardens as parties. 3 On the claims of sex discrimination, the examiner found that the medical history form did not unlawfully discriminate against women and that the commission had failed to prove a discriminatory or retaliatory refusal to hire. When, in response to a motion for reconsideration, the examiner denied any further hearing or relief, the plaintiff appealed his decision to the Superior Court. 4 See General Statutes § 4-183. The trial court reversed the hearing examiner's finding of jurisdiction over Campbell Soup and Lexington Gardens but affirmed his findings on the discrimination claims. On appeal to this court, the plaintiff claims that the trial court erred in dismissing the case against two parties; in failing to find a discriminatory refusal to hire in violation of General Statutes § 31-126(a); and in failing to find a retaliatory refusal to hire in violation of General Statutes § 31-126(d). The plaintiff does not, however, challenge any subsidiary fact-finding by the hearing examiner. Because the identity of the proper parties to this appeal is an essential predicate to a review of the plaintiff's substantive claims of discrimination, we will first address the jurisdictional issue.
The plaintiff's original complaint, filed on November 5, 1974, charged Pepperidge Farm with a November 4 violation of General Statutes § 31-126(a), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in employment practices. Thereafter, following her receipt on December 3 of a letter from the president of Lexington Gardens denying her employment and the failure of the commission's subsequent conciliation efforts, the plaintiff on September 24, 1975, filed her second, amended, complaint, this time naming Campbell Soup, Lexington Gardens, and Pepperidge Farm and charging as well a violation of General Statutes § 31-126(d), which prohibits employer retaliation.
In its memorandum of decision the trial court accepted the retaliation claim as a valid amendment but concluded that the September 24 addition of Campbell Soup and Lexington Gardens to the plaintiff's complaint, more than ninety days after the alleged act of discrimination, "represented an entirely new complaint which did not relate back to the filing of the original complaint against Pepperidge Farms [sic] on November 4 [sic], 1974." 5 The court thus reversed the hearing examiner, who had determined that the similarities between the two complaints and the relationships among the parties rendered the second complaint a permissible amendment. After reviewing the record before us, we hold that the trial court erred in rejecting the examiner's finding of jurisdiction.
At the hearing held before the commission's examiner, witnesses from the three corporations named by the plaintiff testified at length about the organizational ties of their companies. Their uncontradicted testimony revealed the following facts: Pepperidge Farm and Lexington Gardens are both subsidiaries of Campbell Soup, which provides medical, legal and personnel management services to them in return for an annual fee. Erwin Schneider, the president of Lexington Gardens, is also a vice president of Pepperidge Farm and receives his salary from the latter company. The medical form used by Lexington Gardens for its job applicants was developed by the medical director of Campbell Soup, Dr. Roland F. Wear, Jr.; it carries the heading "Pepperidge Farm" and is returned directly to Wear's office at Campbell headquarters. All medical records for Lexington Gardens are controlled by the Pepperidge Farm nurse who rejected the plaintiff's form as incomplete.
The defendants' handling of the plaintiff's job application and complaint further demonstrates the network of ties among these companies. Robert White, who initially interviewed the plaintiff for a position with Lexington Gardens, at that time had an office at Pepperidge Farm headquarters in Norwalk. The commission investigator first discussed the plaintiff's complaint with James Morgan, director of personnel for Pepperidge Farm, and it was Morgan who then suggested to Craig Cavanaugh of Lexington Gardens that he check the plaintiff's references. When Cavanaugh had difficulty in obtaining the necessary information, Morgan checked one reference himself. Morgan further testified that he promptly discussed the plaintiff's complaint with Wear and consulted the legal department of Campbell Soup. When Morgan wrote to the commission investigator concerning the complaint, he used a Lexington Gardens letterhead and signed himself "Director of Personnel, Lexington Gardens, Inc."
We include this detailed account of corporate interconnections because it amply supports the examiner's finding that both Lexington Gardens and Campbell Soup had full knowledge of the proceedings from the filing of the plaintiff's initial complaint. The three corporations named by the plaintiff functioned, with regard to the plaintiff's employment, as one intertwined enterprise, repeatedly acting for one another without formal designations of agency. The record clearly indicates that all three corporations had prompt notice of the plaintiff's complaint and consulted freely about their response to her charges. Under these circumstances, the examiner correctly concluded that the second complaint was properly to be treated as an amendment rather than a new charge subject to the one hundred and eighty day statutory deadline. General Statutes § 31-127 clearly provides that "[t]he tribunal conducting any hearing may permit reasonable amendment to any complaint or answer...." See West Hartford v. Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities, 176 Conn. 291, 297, 407 A.2d 964 (1978); Groton v. Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities, 169 Conn. 89, 100, 362 A.2d 1359 (1975); Veeder-Root Co. v Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities, 165 Conn. 318, 328, 334 A.2d 443 (1973). The formal addition, over five months before the hearing, of two parties already fully informed of the plaintiff's charges and intimately involved in the employment procedure under scrutiny must be viewed as a reasonable amendment within the hearing tribunal's statutory discretion. In deciding otherwise the trial court erred.
The plaintiff's principal claim of error on this appeal is the trial court's failure to find that the defendants' medical form with a section designated "Women" was a discriminatory employment practice under General Statutes § 31-126(a). 6 In its memorandum of decision the trial court accepted as adequately supported by the record the hearing examiner's conclusion that since "gender was not the motivation for asking the questions ... the disparate...
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