(1999) 21 Cal.4th 121
Supreme Court of California · Decided August 2, 1999
01. Facts
Latino employees at Avis Rent A Car’s San Francisco airport location alleged that their supervisor, service-station manager John Lawrence, who was authorized to direct and control the drivers, constantly verbally harassed them — routinely calling only the Latino drivers obscene and derogatory names and continually demeaning them based on their race, national origin, and limited English (21 Cal.4th at p. 126). After a trial finding racial harassment, the court issued an injunction prohibiting Avis and Lawrence from using racial epithets against Latino employees (id. at p. 126).
02. Procedural posture
The Supreme Court affirmed the injunction, holding it was not an unconstitutional prior restraint (21 Cal.4th at p. 126).
03. Issue
Whether a court may enjoin an employer and supervisor from continuing to use racial epithets against employees as a remedy for workplace harassment, or whether such an injunction is an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech under the First Amendment.
Holding
A remedial injunction prohibiting an employer (and a supervisor adjudicated to have engaged in unlawful racial harassment) from continuing to use racial epithets in the workplace against the plaintiff employees is permissible and does not constitute an unconstitutional prior restraint, because it enjoins speech only after a judicial determination that the speech was part of unlawful discriminatory conduct.
05. Reasoning
The court reasoned that the injunction did not suppress protected speech in advance but restricted only speech already adjudicated, after trial, to constitute unlawful workplace harassment. Once epithets are found to be the instrumentality of an unlawful employment practice, enjoining their continued use is a valid remedy, not a forbidden prior restraint; the workplace harassment context and the post-adjudication nature of the order distinguished it from impermissible censorship.
Practice Pointer
Aguilar confirms that injunctive relief — not just damages — is available to stop ongoing harassment, and that a properly framed, post-judgment order barring continued epithets survives First Amendment challenge. Plaintiff’s counsel should seek narrowly tailored injunctive relief against proven harassing conduct as part of the remedy in egregious harassment cases.
06. Open questions
Aguilar produced multiple opinions and a closely divided court on the First Amendment analysis; the precise scope and wording of permissible anti-harassment injunctions — how narrowly they must be tailored to avoid prior-restraint problems — remains sensitive and fact-specific.
Cite this entry
Aguilar v. Avis Rent A Car System, Inc. (1999) 21 Cal.4th 121.
“[The supervisor] routinely called only the Latino drivers [derogatory] names … and continually demeaned them on the basis of their race, national origin and lack of English language skills.” — 21 Cal.4th at p. 126
Source: California Official Reports – [insert durable courts.ca.gov / Official Reports link at verification].