STATE OF FLORIDA
DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS
NORMA HURTADO, | ) | |||
) | ||||
Petitioner, | ) | |||
) | ||||
vs. | ) ) | Case | No. | 07-3975 |
NORTH FLORIDA REHAB AND | ) | |||
SPECIALTY CARE, | ) | |||
) | ||||
Respondent. | ) | |||
) |
RECOMMENDED ORDER
Upon due notice, a disputed-fact hearing was held in this case on January 31, 2008, in Gainesville, Florida, before
Ella Jane P. Davis, a duly-assigned Administrative Law Judge of the Division of Administrative Hearings.
APPEARANCES
For Petitioner: Norma Hurtado, pro se
6742 Southwest 45th Avenue Gainesville, Florida 32608
For Respondent: Matthew Laflin, Esquire
as Qualified Representative Littler Mendelson
3348 Peachtree Road Northeast, Suite 1100
Atlanta, Georgia 30326
STATEMENT OF THE ISSUE
Whether Respondent is guilty of unlawful employment practices; to wit: disparate treatment due to Petitioner's race (Hispanic) and/or retaliation.
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
This cause was referred to the Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) on or about August 31, 2007, subsequent to a “Determination: No Cause” by the Florida Commission on Human Relations (FCHR) and a timely Petition for Relief.
On September 11, 2007, a Notice of Hearing for November 8, 2007, was entered. On October 16, 2007, an Order Granting Continuance was entered in response to Respondent's Unopposed Motion for Continuance filed October 8, 2007. The case was continued until November 28, 2007. On October 19, 2007, Petitioner filed proposed dates for final hearing. An Order Granting Continuance and Rescheduling Hearing was entered on October 24, 2007. On November 16, 2007, Petitioner filed a Motion for Continuance. Respondent filed a response thereto on the same day. On December 3, 2007, an Order Granting Continuance until January 31, 2008, was entered.
Many motions followed. A telephonic conference call was held on January 29, 2008, and the same day, an Order was entered disposing of all issues pending at the prior telephonic conference call.
At the final disputed-fact hearing conducted on January 31, 2008, Petitioner presented the oral testimony of Karen Derrico,
Ruthie Moore, Sneha Rema, Elaine Brawner, Tameka Reed, Yadira Charala, Theresa Volk, Lisa Sterer nee’ Woods, and George C. Hamilton, and testified on her own behalf. Petitioner had Exhibits P-1, P-2, P-3, P-5, and P-9, admitted in evidence.
Respondent presented the oral testimony of George C. Hamilton and Lisa Sterer nee’ Woods.
Composite Joint Exhibit "A," (the Charge of Discrimination, FCHR’s Determination: No Cause, and Petitioner's timely-filed Petition) was also admitted into evidence.
A Transcript was filed with the Division of Administrative Hearings on March 5, 2008. The parties timely filed their respective Proposed Recommended Orders, on April 2, and April 7, 2008, which have been considered in preparation of this Recommended Order.
FINDINGS OF FACT
Petitioner is an Hispanic female. At all times material, Petitioner was employed as a Registered Nurse, Nursing Supervisor, by Respondent. Respondent is a rehabilitative nursing facility in Gainesville, Florida, which qualifies as an "employer" under Chapter 760, Florida Statutes. Since the situations complained-of by Petitioner occurred, Petitioner has continued to be employed by Respondent with no breaks in service, no decreases in pay, no change in benefits, and no demotions in rank.
At all times material, Respondent has employed Caucasians, Hispanics, African-Americans, and persons of Indian sub-continent descent.
Petitioner signed on March 23, 2007, and on April 5, 2007, filed a Charge of Discrimination with FCHR. The Charge alleged that the Employer Respondent had perpetrated an unlawful employment practice upon Petitioner due to her race (Hispanic) and in retaliation.
On July 25, 2007, FCHR entered and served a Determination: No Cause.
On August 27, 2007, Petitioner timely filed a Petition for Relief. However, her Petition for Relief only alleged discrimination on the basis of retaliation. The retaliation named was that "my evaluation would be done in a group because of a meeting with Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Hawkins." There are no references whatsoever to race or national origin within the Petition for Relief.
The Petition does not specifically allege pattern, or on-going discrimination. It does not specifically allege harassment or hostile work place. It suggests only that Petitioner feels that she does not get respect and is "attacked without evidence."
Via her Petition, Petitioner seeks the remedy of ". . . that they [the employer] pay for all my therapies and medication and pay for the meetings I attended.”
Early on September 5, 2006, Petitioner was standing in line to punch-in on her timecard at Respondent’s facility. Barbara Washington, an African-American CNA, was standing directly behind her. Petitioner shielded her social security number from Ms. Washington’s gaze.
Later the same day, Petitioner was rolling a medicine cart down the hallway in Unit Two of Respondent's facility. Ms. Washington was taking a dinner break, seated in a position near the nursing station, which permitted her to view the patients assigned to her. Unfortunately, Ms. Washington's
position did not permit Petitioner and the medicine cart to pass. Petitioner requested that Ms. Washington move, so as to let Petitioner and the medicine cart pass.
Ms. Washington spoke sharply to Petitioner, either because Petitioner asked her to get out of the way of the medicine cart or for reasons of Ms. Washington's own related to the morning punch-in. During a later investigation by Director of Nursing (DON) Lisa Woods Streer, several versions of what Ms. Washington actually said were elicited. However, the best and most credible evidence on this particular point is
Petitioner’s testimony that Ms. Washington loudly used profanity (“the F word”) directly to Petitioner. There is, however, no evidence that, whatever the exchange entailed, any patient was disturbed, upset, or even aware of the exchange, and there is no evidence that the statements from Ms. Washington had anything to do with Petitioner’s Hispanic origin or any type of employer “retaliation.”
At least three hours later on September 5, 2006, after Ms. Washington had gone off-shift and was standing outside the facility waiting for a ride home, Petitioner handed
Ms. Washington a disciplinary form, known as “a counseling slip.” At that point, Ms. Washington refused to sign the counseling slip
and, screaming loudly, denunciated Petitioner with additional profanity similar to her earlier verbal abuse. This language was overheard by Yadira Chavala, who was inside the building making out reports. Ms. Chavala stood up and looked out the window so as to determine who was yelling the profanity. Ms. Chavala considered the volume and content of Ms. Washington's comments to be unprofessional and unacceptable, but she did not take it upon herself to report the incident to the DON, who was not present in the facility at that time of the evening. Again, there is no evidence that Ms. Washington was attacking Petitioner’s ethnicity or acting on behalf of the employer in her screams at Petitioner.
Petitioner, however, reported to the DON both incidents of loud profanity and insubordination from Ms. Washington towards Petitioner, via a copy of the counseling slip she had given to Ms. Washington and a note slipped under the DON’s door. DON Lisa Woods Streer, found these items when she came on duty the next morning, September 6, 2006.
Pursuant to Respondent’s protocol, Ms. Streer asked Unit Director Karen Derrico to take written statements from staff, concerning the med-cart incident which had occasioned the counseling slip from Petitioner.
The general tone of the feedback that Ms. Derrico got was that everyone in the facility had heard about the medicine cart incident, but there were no clear and reliable eye witnesses. Ms. Washington did not immediately own-up to her conduct and told DON Streer that Petitioner had made
Ms. Washington feel like a thief by covering Petitioner’s social
security number when they punched-in together the morning of September 5, 2006. The DON viewed this comment by Ms. Washington as a counter-accusation of some kind (possibly a complaint of discrimination) against Petitioner, and so the investigation continued. At some point, Ms. Chavala came forward to describe what she had heard from inside the building when Ms. Washington was cursing in the patio/parking area.
Petitioner did not like the taking of statements and considered the process to be an attack on herself. She also did not like the fact that she was called in for a meeting on September 13, 2006, but was informed after she had arrived that the meeting had been put off to the next day.
By September 13, 2006, the decision to discipline Ms. Washington had been made, because by that time Ms. Chavala
had come forward concerning the second incident, but because the DON felt that Petitioner “had backed Ms. Washington into a corner” Petitioner required some counseling.
Upset that a meeting was to take place the next day, Petitioner telephoned Mr. McKalvane of Respondent’s Human Resources Department in Pensacola, to complain about how the September 5, 2006, situation was being handled. Petitioner testified, without corroboration, that Mr. McKalvane told her
that he could not talk to her before the next day’s meeting, but would attend the meeting by speaker phone.
On Thursday, September 14, 2006, a two-hour meeting was held at the facility. DON Streer; Administrator George C. Hamilton; Unit Director Derrico; Ruthie Moore, the facility’s
Staff Development Coordinator; and Petitioner were present. Streer, Hamilton, and Derrico are Caucasians. Moore is African- American. Mr. McKalvane's race/national origin is not of record, but he did not appear at the meeting, even by telephone.
Petitioner felt betrayed because Mr. McKalvane did not attend the September 14, 2006, meeting by telephone.
At the September 14, 2006, meeting, Ms. Moore suggested that if Petitioner had known that Ms. Washington was upset, it might have been wise for Petitioner to wait until the next day to hand Ms. Washington her counseling slip. Petitioner was offended by this comment because she believed her delay of three hours after the medicine cart incident before issuing the counseling slip had been sufficient.
At the September 14, 2006, meeting, DON Streer suggested that Petitioner might want to get with Ms. Moore for some in-service instruction on how to be a better supervisor. Petitioner was offended by this suggestion, because Petitioner perceived no fault in her handling of Ms. Washington.
At no time has Petitioner ever been required by the employer to take supervisory in-service training as a result of the September 5-14, 2006, events. In fact, Petitioner has not taken such training or any similar one-on-one training or in- servicing with the employer, and she has not been penalized for not doing so.
As a result of Petitioner’s counseling slip concerning the September 5, 2006, incidents with Ms. Washington,
Ms. Washington was suspended from work for one day without pay,
but Petitioner was not disciplined in any way concerning
Ms. Washington’s accusations. Petitioner suffered no discipline or loss in pay, position, or benefits as a result of the September 5, 2006, or September 14, 2006, events.
Petitioner submitted that the employer’s punishment of Ms. Washington was somehow discriminatory against Petitioner because it took management nine days to come to the one-day suspension of the person that Petitioner wanted to be disciplined. However, the only comparator that Petitioner was able to offer was a situation which occurred a year later, in 2007. On that occasion, an oral confrontation occurred between an African-American female worker and a Caucasian female supervisor. There is no specific evidence concerning how similar the 2007 incident was to any of the September 5, 2007, incidents involving Ms. Washington and Petitioner.
However, in the 2007 incident, the African-American female immediately admitted wrong-doing, and the very next day, the employer suspended her for one day without pay, just as the employer had suspended Ms. Washington for one day without pay in 2006, in response to Petitioner's counseling slip. Ms. Streer testified credibly that in 2007, the investigation and counseling period was shortened by the subordinate’s immediate admission of wrong-doing and lack of accusations against her reporting supervisor.
Approximately September 20, 2006, Petitioner sent a 19- page, typewritten letter of complaint to Respondent’s corporate
headquarters. The scope of this letter is not clear because it is not in evidence.
Petitioner was supposed to be evaluated annually each September, but she did not receive her evaluation in September 2006. She reminded the DON in November 2006, that she had not yet been evaluated. Shortly thereafter, Petitioner received her annual evaluation which bears a date of October 5, 2006, signed on October 22, 2006, by Weekend Nursing Supervisor Sneha Rema,
R.N. Supervisor, and signed-off on by DON Sterer on October 31, 2006.1/ Ms. Rema received no input for her 2006 evaluation from the DON or Administrator.
By observation, Ms. Rema appears to be a member of one
of the ethnic groups originating on the Indian sub-continent. She rated Petitioner as "exceptional" in categories "work quality," "work quantity/productivity," and "compliance &
adherence to policies," and as "meets expectations" in categories "core values" and "leadership skills."
Under the 2006, evaluation's heading, "Areas of Improvement, Developmental and/or Upcoming Objectives," Ms. Rema put this comment about Petitioner:
May improve her leadership skills by attending seminars on interpersonal relationship and how to influence others to accomplish goals in constructive way and team building from a constructive point-of- view.
Ms. Rema approaches evaluations with the belief that each employee has different levels of education and skills, should be encouraged to constantly improve, and can best improve
if supervisors point out to the employee performance areas susceptible of improvement by the employee. This viewpoint was Ms. Rema’s sole motivation in making the foregoing comment.
Ms. Rema views these types of comments as a way of pointing out goals, not failures.
Contrariwise, Petitioner holds the personal belief that unless every single nurse received identical language on the foregoing part of his or her respective annual evaluation, regardless of that employee’s individual circumstances and regardless of who wrote the evaluation, then Petitioner has suffered a personal attack and discriminatory treatment by the employer.
There is no evidence that the 2006, evaluation caused Petitioner any loss of pay, position, benefits, or hours. In fact, she received a raise. If the raise was delayed by one month, that information does not appear in the record.
At some point between September 20, 2006, which was the date of Petitioner’s letter, and the end of November 2006, (the exact date is not of record), Mr. Ken Hawkins, a consultant of Respondent’s corporate personnel office in Tampa, journeyed to the facility and met with Petitioner to try to resolve her concerns. Mr. Hawkins race/national origin is not of record.
The meeting was more acrimonious than harmonious and ended with Mr. Hawkins advising Petitioner that her concerns “were history” and he was not going to go over everything that had already been addressed. Petitioner was offended by Mr. Hawkins’ description of the events that concerned her as “history”; because she felt
he yelled at her; and because she felt he had made her come to the facility for a live meeting when he could have just told her “no” over the phone.
The two-hour September 14, 2006, counseling meeting and the brief meeting sometime after September 20, 2006, during which Mr. Hawkins told Petitioner he was not going to go over her concerns again are the meetings for which Petitioner feels Respondent employer should pay her.
Sometime after her meeting with Mr. Hawkins, Petitioner filed a discrimination complaint with the City of Gainesville Office of Equal Opportunity. The date of this complaint is uncertain. However, it had to precede March 9, 2007, because on that date, in response to the city action, and in accord with Respondent’s Human Resources Office’s instructions, Administrator Hamilton wrote Petitioner and provided her with the Respondent’s 1-800 telephone number to report discrimination. Respondent has an anti-discrimination policy and also posts the 1-800 number in its facilities.
Petitioner also filed an EEOC discrimination complaint, and the underlying discrimination complaint herein was filed with FCHR on April 5, 2007. Because her FCHR complaint was signed on March 23, 2007, the undersigned takes it that the EEOC complaint was filed at approximately that time.
Petitioner has complained that, as a result of her September 20, 2006, letter to corporate headquarters, she was told, either by Ms. Streer or by Mr. Hawkins that she must be evaluated “in a group.” Her testimony on this issue as to who
told her this vacillated, and the group rating was not confirmed by any other witness nor by the signatures on the 2006 and 2007 evaluations in evidence. Although Ms. Streer signs-off as the next level of management on evaluations, that action hardly constitutes "group rating."
The evidence as a whole provides the overall sense that Petitioner has been, in the vernacular, “prickly” about what she perceives as situations of disparate treatment, none of which were supported by credible evidence in the instant case, and that as a result of Petitioner’s heightened sensitivity, none of Petitioner's on-site superiors want to expose themselves to old or new accusations by her, but the greater weight of the credible evidence is that in 2007, Theresa Volk, Unit Manager of Station One, supervised Petitioner for only two days per week, so Ms. Volk believed that Petitioner's supervisor for the remainder of the week should have input to Petitioner's 2007 evaluation. Ms. Volk’s name and that of Ms. Rema appear on the first page of Petitioner’s 2007 evaluation, but only Ms. Volk signed as her “evaluator” on October 9, 2007.
In that 2007, evaluation, Ms. Volk rated Petitioner
“exceptional” in “work quality” and “work quantity/productivity,” and “meets expectations" in “customer service,” “compliance & adherence to policies,” “core values,” and “leadership skills.” Under “areas for improvement,” she made a comment about wound care documentation intended for Petitioner’s improvement.
After receiving her September 2007, evaluation, which had been signed by Ms. Volk on October 9, 2007, Petitioner
suffered no loss in pay, position, or benefits, and, once again, received her annual raise. Petitioner testified that she got her 2007 raise “late” but did not quantify how late.
Petitioner wrote Ms. Volk a letter treating Ms. Volk’s evaluation comment for improvement as a criticism related to a particular past incident, and was offended when Ms. Volk refused to stop the work she was doing to read Petitioner’s letter.
Respondent has a policy which requires employees to request personal paid time-off 30 days in advance. Petitioner testified that under this system, she properly requested time off for October 20, 2007, and November 3, 2007, but that shortly before those dates, Ms. Streer told her she could have only one date or the other, but if Petitioner wanted to take off both days, Petitioner had to get a replacement for one day. While this much of Petitioner’s testimony is unrefuted, Petitioner was not persuasive that she ever got written approval of the dates, and she did not establish any connection between the denial of two days' leave and either her Hispanic heritage or as retaliation for her prior letter to corporate headquarters or as retaliation for any of her discrimination complaints in March or April 2007.
Petitioner presented no evidence that she lost pay,
position, promotion or benefits at any time, on the basis of retaliation or her Hispanic heritage.
Petitioner testified that she had to go into therapy and pay for medications as a result of the stress that the foregoing incidents have caused her. She presented no
corroborative medical testimony or evidence of any professional diagnosis and further presented no medical or pharmaceutical bills to establish any damages therefor.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
The Division of Administrative Hearings has jurisdiction over the parties and subject matter of this cause, pursuant to Sections 120.57(1), 120.569, and Chapter 760, Florida Statutes.
While it might be possible to say that Petitioner abandoned the issue of discrimination due to her Hispanic status when she only included an allegation of retaliation in her Petition for Relief, the parties acquiesced at hearing to addressing the issue of her Hispanic status, and her Hispanic status has been considered.
In cases alleging racial discrimination based on disparate treatment, a petitioner bears the burden of proof established in McDonnell-Douglas v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973); Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 (1981). Under this model of proof, a petitioner bears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of discrimination. If she meets her initial burden, the burden to go forward shifts to the employer to articulate a legitimate, non-discriminatory explanation for the employment action. Dept.
of Corrections v. Chandler, 582 So. 2d 1183 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991).
If the employer meets its burden of production, the petitioner must then persuade the court that the employer’s proffered reason is a pretext for intentional discrimination.
To establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination based on disparate treatment, a petitioner must show the following: (a) she belongs to a racial minority; (b) she was subjected to adverse employment action(s); (c) she was qualified for her position; and (d) the employer treated similarly situated employees outside the protected class more favorably. See McDonnell-Douglas v. Green, supra; Holifield v. Reno, 115 F.3d 1555 (11th Cir. 1997).
In order to show an adverse employment action, a petitioner must establish that the action caused a serious and material change in the terms of her employment. Lindsay v. Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co., 2004 Westlaw 443773 (11th Cir. 2004); Davis v Town of Lake Park, Florida, 245 F.3d 1232 (11th Cir. 2001); Hanley v. Sports Auth., 143 F. Supp. 2d 1351 (S.D. Fla. 2000); Maniccia v. Brown, 171 F.3d 1264 (11th Cir. 1999).
Petitioner herein is an Hispanic female and is qualified for her position. All evidence indicates that she meets or exceeds standards. She meets the first and third criteria for a prima facie case of racial discrimination. However, she did not meet the burden of production for adverse
employment action and disparate treatment from similarly situated non-minority employees.
Petitioner’s only offered comparator (the 2007 one-day suspension of an orally insubordinate African-American employee reported by her Caucasian supervisor) had a virtually identical result to that of Petitioner’s report of Ms. Washington. Petitioner presented no evidence of any discrimination against any Hispanic employees. The fact that one investigation took nine days and one investigation took one day is meaningless. As a matter of law, this cannot be considered an adverse employment action against Petitioner. See Gupta v. Fla. Board of Regents,
212 F.3d 571 (11th Cir. 2000). "An action which, it turns out, had no effect on an employee is not an adverse action." In any case, Respondent produced clear, cogent reasons for the delay in Petitioner's investigation which Petitioner did not refute.
To prove a prima facie case of “retaliation," a petitioner must show the following (a) she engaged in statutorily protected expression; (b) she suffered an adverse employment action such as a demotion or dismissal; and (c) the adverse employment action was causally related to the protected activity. Harper v. Blockbuster Entertainment Corp., 139 F.3d 1385 (11th Cir. 1998).
Petitioner claimed that she suffered “retaliation” as a result of her September 20, 2006, letter to corporate
headquarters. She did not offer that letter in evidence. The only evidence of retaliation is her uncorroborated testimony that Mr. Hawkins yelled at her in an extremely short meeting during which he tried to address the concerns expressed in her letter. At hearing, Petitioner articulated nothing specific that she thought Mr. Hawkins should have done, after the fact of Ms. Washington’s one day suspension. Also, contrary to her allegations against Mr. Hawkins and Ms. Streer, Petitioner has not been rated “in a group.” Even if she had been rated in a group, that alone without some adverse effect, would not reach a level of discrimination. An employer's personnel decisions which have no adverse effect on an employee are not subject to "second guessing" from a court. See cases, infra. Petitioner has received no unfavorable ratings. She has received raises which, at worst, were only minimally delayed by bureaucratic paperwork. The comments on her evaluations which address room for improvement are offensive to her solely because she believes she does not need to improve. This is a common disagreement between employers and employees, but it does not reach the level of “disparate treatment” as that term has been applied in federal or Florida discrimination cases.
Petitioner has fixated on distinctions without a difference. She is entitled to her point of view and to her feelings, however subjective, but she is not entitled to an
award on the basis of discrimination. "An employee's feelings and perceptions of being discriminated against are not evidence of discrimination." See Bickerstaff v. Vassar College, 196 F.3d
435 (2nd Cir. 1999). "Courts do not sit as a super-personnel department that re-examines an entity's business decisions." See Chapman v. AI Transportation, 229 F.3d 1012 (11th Cir.
2000); Cofield v. Goldkist, Inc., 267 F.3d 1264, 1269 (11th Cir. 2001). Petitioner has not shown that a reasonable person objectively would find the conduct at issue to be hostile or abusive. See Lawrence v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 236 F. Supp. 2d 1314 (M.D. Fla. 2002).
There is only an uncorroborated statement by Petitioner that she was not paid for the two-hour meeting on September 14, 2006, and for the somewhat later meeting with Mr. Hawkins, and her theory of why the employer owes her any money on this basis is unpersuasive. Employees are typically
required to comply with employment investigations, particularly when they, themselves, initiate the investigative procedures.
While it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Petitioner has some separate cause of action under the “wage and hour” category of the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act if she did not receive her hourly wage or overtime for these meetings, it is probable that in each instance, had the employer ignored the concerns raised by Petitioner herself, the employer could have
subjected itself to a barrage of civil rights complaints. Petitioner cannot have it both ways.
Petitioner did not adequately allege “hostile workplace,” but has argued that the work environment now is hostile and that management undermines her authority due to her race or in retaliation for her letter. Assuming arguendo, but not ruling that she had alleged such a situation, to establish a prima facie case for a hostile work environment, Petitioner would have to have provided evidence that showed that a reasonable person would perceive the conduct as hostile or abusive, and that the conduct at issue was so extreme as to amount to a change in terms and conditions of employment, with some “real world” effect, as opposed to merely subjective speculation and hurt feelings. See Farringer v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (1988). She did not prove such a severe change in the terms and conditions of her employment.
Petitioner has not proven a prima facie case on any of her theories of discrimination.
Assuming arguendo, but not ruling, that Petitioner established a prima facie case on any liability theory, she failed to discredit the reasons articulated by the Respondent Employer.
As to damages, Petitioner also presented no evidence of an amount of lost wages and no expert evidence of a causally
related medical problem or of amounts expended for her mental anguish and hurt feelings. However, it is noted that, unlike a circuit court, the Division is not statutorily authorized to award damages for mental anguish, loss of dignity, or other compensatory damages. (Compare Section Florida Statutes 760.11
(5) and (6), Florida Statutes).
Based on the foregoing Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law, it is
RECOMMENDED that the Florida Commission on Human Relations enter a final order dismissing the Complaint of Discrimination and the Petition for Relief.
DONE AND ENTERED this 30th day of May, 2008, in Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida.
S
ELLA JANE P. DAVIS
Administrative Law Judge
Division of Administrative Hearings The DeSoto Building
1230 Apalachee Parkway
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-3060
(850) 488-9675 SUNCOM 278-9675
Fax Filing (850) 921-6847 www.doah.state.fl.us
Filed with the Clerk of the Division of Administrative Hearings this 30th day of May, 2007.
ENDNOTE
1/ Petitioner also attempted to introduce Exhibit P-4, which was a 2004 evaluation by Ms. Volk, but she was not permitted to do so because the date of that evaluation was more than 365 days prior to the filing of her April 5, 2006, Charge of Discrimination before FCHR, and therefore is barred by the statute of limitations and non-claim, Section 760.11(1), Florida Statutes.
COPIES FURNISHED:
Cecil Howard, General Counsel
Florida Commission on Human Relations 2009 Apalachee Parkway, Suite 100
Tallahassee, Florida 32301
Denise Crawford, Agency Clerk
Florida Commission on Human Relations 2009 Apalachee Parkway, Suite 100
Tallahassee, Florida 32301
Norma Hurtado
6742 Southwest 45th Avenue Gainesville, Florida 32608
Matthew Laflin, Esquire Littler Mendelson
3348 Peachtree Road Northeast, Suite 1100
Atlanta, Georgia 30326
NOTICE OF RIGHT TO SUBMIT EXCEPTIONS
All parties have the right to submit written exceptions within
15 days from the date of this Recommended Order. Any exceptions to this Recommended Order should be filed with the agency that will issue the final order in this case.
| Issue Date | Document | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| May 30, 2008 | Recommended Order | Petitioner who suffered no adverse action could not sustain her discrimination claim for hurt feelings. |
