Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from judgments of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, No. BC369062, Rolf M. Treu, Judge .
Alfreda Christian, in pro. per., for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, James M. Humes, Chief Assistant Attorney General, James Schiavenza, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Richard Rojo, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Heidi T. Salerno, Deputy Attorney General, for Defendants and Respondents State of California and Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
Law Offices of David J. Weiss, David J. Weiss and Peter M. Bollinger for Defendant and Respondent County of Los Angeles.
Judge of the Orange Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.
Plaintiff Alfreda Christian appeals from judgments of dismissal entered after the court sustained demurrers by defendants State of California and its Department of Fair Employment and Housing (collectively DFEH), and County of Los Angeles (county), to her second amended complaint (SAC) for employment-related wrongs. We affirm the judgments.
FACTS
Plaintiff filed her SAC after demurrers to her first two complaints were sustained with leave to amend. The SAC alleged that plaintiff had been employed by the county, as a typist-clerk, until wrongfully discharged, in response to her complaints of discrimination and sexual harassment. Plaintiff had considered herself constructively discharged before her formal termination. She filed claims with the DFEH, which investigated and ultimately closed them, while issuing her right-to-sue letters.
The SAC alleged eight causes of action, nominally against both the county and DFEH, but factually more against the county. These claims were for (1) wrongful termination; (2) racial discrimination (involving failure to promote plaintiff); (3) sex discrimination (involving repeated transfers); (4) libel; (5) retaliation (involving the transfers); (6) invasion of privacy (by disclosure of medical information to prospective employers); (7) sexual harassment; and (8) fraud. Legally, plaintiff alleged that these claims all were based on the Unruh Civil Rights Act (Civ. Code, § 51 et seq.; Unruh Act), the Fair Employment and Housing Act (Gov. Code § 12900 et seq.; FEHA), and Title 42 United States Code section 1983 (section 1983).
The trial court sustained DFEH’s demurrers to all causes of action without leave to amend, on overlapping grounds that (1) DFEH was not a proper defendant under section 1983; (2) DFEH was not liable under FEHA because DFEH had not been plaintiff’s employer, only the recipient of her claims; (3) DFEH was not liable under either the Unruh Act or FEHA because plaintiff had not exhausted administrative remedies; (4) DFEH was immune from suit under various Government Code sections; and (5) the SAC did not allege that plaintiff had filed a claim under the Government Claims Act, Government Code section 900 et seq.
The county’s demurrers were sustained without leave to amend insofar as plaintiff’s causes of action were based on the Unruh Act, and, with respect to the non-FEHA causes, for failure to file a government claim. With respect to the causes for racial discrimination, sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation, the county’s demurrers were sustained with leave to amend. After plaintiff filed a notice of appeal from this order, the trial court, at this court’s direction, dismissed the latter four claims for failure to amend, and entered judgment dismissing the entire SAC as to the county.
Following the demurrer rulings, plaintiff filed requests for default against the defendants. The requests alleged failure to appear for certain proceedings that were continued or ordered off calendar; plaintiff also complained about the demurrer rulings and about alleged tactics of defendants. The court rejected or struck the requests.
Plaintiff filed a form notice of appeal from the judgments on demurrer and from the “default judgment.”
DISCUSSION
In her briefs, plaintiff generally does not challenge the substantive grounds on which the SAC was found to be fatally insufficient with respect to both DFEH and the county. Instead, she offers familiar generalities about liberal construction of complaints, and liberality in granting leave to amend, none of which confronts the multiple defects of her pleading. Plaintiff’s particular argument that exhaustion of administrative remedies is not required for section 1983 claims is unavailing because DFEH cannot be liable under that statute, and because, as the county argued with respect to section 1983, the SAC failed to identify a policy or custom of the county under which it acted. (See Bougere v. County of Los Angeles (2006) 141 Cal.App.4th 237, 246.) Plaintiff’s assertion that the DFEH failed to enforce its laws is belied by the exhibits to the SAC, which show that DFEH handled plaintiff’s claims to completion, and provided her with the right to sue.
Plaintiff also reasserts the propriety of her requests for default. Despite frequent citations to Code of Civil Procedure section 585, which prescribes the right to default upon nonappearance in an action, plaintiff does not recognize that the default mechanism is so confined. She claims entitlement to default under discovery and “fast-track” statutes, which do not apply to the facts she alleges, and do not confer a right to clerical entry of default.
DISPOSITION
The judgments are affirmed.
We concur: RUBIN, Acting P. J., BIGELOW, J.