What started as a "Furlough Friday" business promotion has led to discrimination accusations and something you don't see every day: trial lawyers backing a bill that would eliminate some lawsuits.
Senate Bill 367 would allow businesses to offer discounts to all furloughed workers – with public or private employers – without violating the Unruh Civil Rights Act.
The Assembly Judiciary Committee will consider the bill today, a day before most state government offices will close for the first of three Furlough Fridays in July.
With the backing of the Consumer Attorneys of California, Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, and Sen. Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach, wrote the bill after learning that a San Diego attorney cited the Unruh Act to threaten discrimination lawsuits against businesses that cut prices for furloughed state workers.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered the 235,000 state workers under his authority to start two-day-per-month furloughs in February. When the 2009-10 fiscal year started July 1, with a $26.3 billion budget shortfall, he added another furlough day.
Sacramento-area businesses have marketed to furloughed workers with targeted discounts on everything from lift tickets to oil changes. They shouldn't be punished, Negrete McLeod said.
"We need to remove barriers and impediments that can be used to prevent business from offering a helping hand to those down on their luck," the senator said in a statement.
Christopher Dolan, president-elect of the consumer attorneys, said that threatening to sue businesses catering to furloughed state workers – and there are about 90,000 of them in the immediate Sacramento area – "violates the spirit of the Unruh Act."
The 50-year-old law says California businesses must give "the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services" to everyone, "regardless of sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, marital status, or sexual orientation."
Lawyers have invoked the act in legal battles over everything from "ladies' night" drink discounts (illegal unless men get the deal, too, the court ruled), Mother's Day women's hat giveaways (the Oakland A's paid $510,000 to settle) to whether a private school can expel bisexual students (legal, the court said, because the nonprofit school wasn't a business).
Unruh Act violators face a minimum penalty of $4,000 per violation plus the cost of the winner's legal fees.
Dolan and state officials said that SB 367 was prompted after a Southern California lawyer threatened to sue Sacramento-area businesses and at least one Northern California ski resort for offering discounts to furloughed state employees.
A fact sheet released by Negrete McLeod's office said the attorney, who was not named, had sent letters to Sacramento businesses, "demanding statutory and actual damages as well as payment of his attorney fees."
Negrete McLeod's press secretary, Alfonso Sanchez, said that despite the pending legislation, businesses that go ahead with discounts for furloughed employees are taking a legal risk.
"They could be targeted by a lawyer," Sanchez said.
Call The Bee's Jon Ortiz, (916) 321-1043.
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