Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—C.D. Cal.: Former USPS worker, outed as transsexual and harassed at work, advances claims, (Apr 25, 2025)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

In denying USPS’s motion to dismiss, the court could not agree that discrete acts may not be considered in stating a hostile work environment claim.

A federal district court in California denied a partial motion to dismiss the claims of a former USPS employee who allegedly suffered harassment and retaliation after a coworker outed her as transsexual. The USPS sought to dismiss allegations surrounding five incidents on the grounds that the employee had failed to exhaust her claims, allegations regarding discrete acts of discrimination from her hostile work environment claims, and allegations surrounding an EEO counselor’s actions from the employee’s Title VII retaliation claim. The court found it had subject matter jurisdiction over the failure to exhaust claims, that discrete acts of discrimination could potentially support a hostile work environment claim, and that the employee met her burden of showing a reasonable employee would be dissuaded from filing a discrimination charge (Scannell v. DeJoy, No. 2:24-cv-09280-WLH (MAR) (C.D. Cal. Apr. 22, 2025)).

In February 2020, the employee began working as a city carrier assistant (CCA) in Chicago. In January 2021, she moved to Los Angeles and began work as a CCA in the Culver City post office.

Anti-LGBTQ+ environment. During the time at issue in this case, the employee presented as male and used a different name in the workplace. In private, she was undergoing a gender transition process. She was reluctant to present herself as a woman at work due to an allegedly anti-LGBTQ+ environment created by other employees.

Depression. In addition, the employee had been diagnosed with depression during this time, leading to her being hospitalized for three days in March 2021. The postmaster at the Culver City office was aware that the employee had been hospitalized for a disability.

Promotion. The employee was assigned to a 204B Acting Closing Supervisor detail in June 2022. In this role, she received an additional dollar per hour and took on additional responsibilities. Her official title was changed to ‘carrier technician’ not long after, resulting in higher pay and better benefits.

Outed. Sometime around August 10, 2022, the employee was outed as transgender at work. A coworker had observed an online profile picture of the employee appearing as a woman and shared the picture with other workers. The employee asked the others to keep things private, but the news spread.

In the following months, different workers constantly approached the employee to comment and ask questions about her genitalia and sexual acts. They also made statements, some “outright and explicitly derogatory,” about her transition or their perception of her sexual orientation.

EEO complaint. After she was outed that August, the employee filed an EEO complaint the same month. In November, she was removed from her 204B Acting Supervisor detail. At this point, she began pursuing opportunities outside of the Culver City post office, eventually transferring to an acting supervisor detail at the Venice post office. In December 2022, the parties reached a settlement in the EEO case, agreeing that management would not impede her upward mobility.

Transfer back. Around May 7, 2023, the Culver City postmaster requested that the employee be returned to his post office. The employee was “terrified” at this prospect. She informed her Venice supervisor of her depression diagnosis and requested one hour of leave per week to attend therapy. Approximately two weeks later, the employee was ordered to end her analyst detail and to return to Culver City to carry mail.

This transfer had a negative impact on the employee’s mental and physical well-being. On May 28, her therapist wrote a letter addressed to the “US Postmaster” placing the employee “off of work” from May 28 to July 28. On or about June 5, the employee presented her Venice supervisor with the letter and requested an accommodation in the form of leave. The supervisor did not respond.

EEO part two. Sometime around June 8, the employee contacted an EEO counselor and stated that she believed the Culver City postmaster was in breach of the settlement agreement. The counselor allegedly discouraged her from moving forward with such allegations.

AWOL. Also on June 8, the employee failed to report to Culver City for an investigative interview. She continued to miss work throughout the month of June and was charged as AWOL. A notice of removal was issued sometime around July 10.

Redondo Beach. On July 18, the Venice supervisor responded to an earlier email sent by the employee and offered her the chance to work at the Redondo Beach post office. The employee agreed, but found the work conditions intolerable, which included a three-hour roundtrip commute, long hours, insufficient staff, and unreasonably high standards.

EEO proceeds. On August 23, the process in the employee’s second EEO complaint kicked off, after the deadline to raise the allegation had passed. The employee resigned on September 9, alleging she was constructively discharged.

Lawsuit. Subsequently, the employee filed suit outlining seven causes of action: (1) sex-based hostile work environment in violation of Title VII; (2) sex-based disparate treatment in violation of Title VII; (3) retaliation in violation of Title VII; (4) disability-based disparate treatment in violation of the Rehabilitation Act; (5) failure to reasonably accommodate in violation the Rehabilitation Act; (6) disability-based hostile work environment in violation of the Rehabilitation Act; and (7) retaliation in violation of the Rehabilitation Act.

Motion to dismiss. Here, the USPS did not seek to dismiss the employee’s complaint in its entirety. Instead, it sought to dismiss: (1) all allegations regarding five incidents on the grounds the employee failed to exhaust her administrative remedies; (2) allegations regarding discrete acts of discrimination from the employee’s hostile work environment causes of action on the grounds that discrete acts cannot support such claims; and (3) allegations concerning the EEO counselor’s actions from the employee’s Title VII retaliation claim.

According to the USPS, with the aforementioned allegations dismissed, the employee fails to state a claim for three causes of action: (1) disability discrimination; (2) failure to accommodate; and (3) disability-based hostile work environment. The court considered each argument in turn.

Failure to exhaust. First, the court considered the administrative exhaustion issues, beginning with USPS’s assertion that the employee had failed to seek timely EEO counseling. Specifically, USPS argued that allegations regarding three incidents should be barred: (1) the employee’s removal from her analyst detail and reassignment to Culver City on May 16, 2023; (2) USPS’s alleged failure to reasonably accommodate the employee in June 2023; and (3) the employee being charged AWOL for her May and June 2023 absences.

According to the employee’s formal EEO complaint, she contacted an EEO counselor about her claims on August 23, 2023. USPS thus argued that the court must dismiss allegations regarding the May and June incidents as time-barred because they occurred more than 45 days before the filing of the complaint. In response, the employee argued that her contact with the EEO office on June 8 satisfied the 45-day requirement. The court opted not to address the majority of these arguments.

Subject matter jurisdiction. USPS failed to cite a case where a court lacked subject matter jurisdiction—or otherwise dismissed a claim—due to a plaintiff’s failure to comply with a requirement to seek EEO counseling within 45 days.

Subject matter jurisdiction extends over all allegations of discrimination that either fall within the scope of the EEOC’s actual investigation or which can be reasonably expected to grow out of the charge of discrimination, explained the court. The evidence here established that the three claims challenged as time-barred were actually investigated by the EEOC and, as such, the court had subject matter jurisdiction over claims stemming from the May and June 2023 incidents. Accordingly, the motion to dismiss these incidents was denied.

Administrative abandonment. USPS also contended that the employee administratively abandoned two claims: (1) disability discrimination stemming from the end of her detail at Culver City on May 16, 2023; and (2) disability discrimination stemming from her reassignment to Redondo Beach in July 2023.

Here, the court found USPS’s treatment of these claims to be “terse,” noting that it possessed the burden of representation, not the court. Given the absence of an explanation from USPS of how the record demonstrates that the employee abandoned the two disability claims in question, the court could not find that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction or that it should otherwise dismiss the claims.

Discrete acts. Next, the court considered USPS’s claim that discrete acts cannot support a hostile work environment claim.

In Lui v. DeJoy, a recent Ninth Circuit case, the court appeared to reject previous interpretations that discrete acts must be excised from hostile work environment claims. There, the court evaluated whether a plaintiff had administratively exhausted her hostile work environment claim when the only act for which she had timely sought counseling was a “notice of proposed downgrade.” The Ninth Circuit explained that while the notice of a proposed downgrade could constitute a discrete adverse employment action, “that does not mean that the notice could not also have been part of the series of actions that cumulatively constituted a hostile work environment.”

Based on this reasoning, the court here could not agree with USPS that discrete acts cannot support a hostile work environment claim. Accordingly, the motion to dismiss these claims was also denied.

Retaliation. Finally, the court turned its attention to whether the employee’s interactions with the EEO counselor constituted an adverse action to support a Title VII retaliation claim. Here, the court found the employee plausibly alleged that a reasonable worker might be dissuaded from making a charge of discrimination if an EEO counselor fails to process the worker’s allegations and expressed a negative opinion of the merits of an employee’s claim. Thus, the motion to dismiss this claim was denied as well.

The case is No. 2:24-cv-09280-WLH (MAR).

Judge: Hsu, W.

Attorneys: Angel James Horacek (Law Offices of Angel J. Horacek) for Amelia Scannell. Jill S. Casselman, U.S. Attorney's Office, for Louis DeJoy.

Cases: Discrimination DisabilityDiscrimination SexDiscrimination Procedure PublicEmployees Retaliation CaliforniaNews