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Regents of University of California v. Superior Court of Alameda County1/30/2002
r's actions were improperly motivated, every-day management decisions fell "far short of the necessary standard of outrageous conduct beyond all bounds of decency"].)
In this case, the trial court failed to appreciate this important distinction between conduct and motive. It reasoned that discriminating against Asian students by excluding them from Boalt constitutes extreme and outrageous conduct. But the allegations of a discriminatory motive, though supportive of a cause of action for discrimination, do not satisfy the extreme and outrageous conduct element. The only conduct that Rui alleged in his complaint was that petitioners denied his applications. This routine administrative action does not constitute outrageous conduct as a matter of law.
Rui attempts to distinguish petitioners' authority as "employment law cases" involving statutory employment-related statutes. He argues that " ust as defendants cannot apply law interpreting the Revenue Code or the Welfare and Institutions Code or the Business and Professions Code to this case, defendants may also not apply law interpreting the FEHA to this case." We are not persuaded. Janken and the other cases cited above are relevant to the extent they involve claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress. That they may also involve statutory employment law claims does not change that fact.
Persisting with his argument, Rui maintains that "mere management decisions" can constitute extreme and outrageous conduct in common law employment cases. The authorities Rui cites do not support this contention. (Huber v. Standard Ins. Co. (9th Cir. 1988) 841 F.2d 980 (Huber); Rulon-Miller v. International Business Machines Corp.(1984) 162 Cal.App.3d 241, 255 (Rulon-Miller).) In Huber, the court found that the humiliating and degrading manner in which the plaintiff was terminated and the defendant employer's abuse of its position of power to damage the plaintiff by impeding him from finding new employment could constitute extreme and outrageous conduct. (Huber, supra, 841 F.2d at p. 987.) In Rulon-Miller, the defendant employer's outrageous conduct was a "combination of statements and conduct [that] would under any reasoned view tend to humiliate and degrade" the plaintiff. (Rulon-Miller, supra, 162 Cal.App.3d at p. 255.)
Thus, in both Huber and Rulon-Miller, the allegedly outrageous conduct was not a mere management decision, but rather the actions taken to effectuate that management decision. (Cf. Trerice v. Blue Cross of California, supra, 209 Cal.App.3d at pp. 884-885 [distinguishing an employer's routine termination decision from the outrageous conduct and statements in Rulon-Miller that were designed to personally humiliate the plaintiff].) Here, by contrast, Rui does not allege any facts which suggest that the decision to reject his application was implemented or communicated to him in an outrageous manner. Indeed, Rui does not dispute petitioners' representation to this court that the decision to deny Rui's application for admission was communicated via standard form letters.
The petitioners' alleged undisclosed motive for denying Rui's application does not alter the basic nature of the conduct alleged. Rui, like the trial court, ignores this crucial distinction between motive and conduct. In Cochran v. Cochran (1998) 65 Cal.App.4th 488 (Cochran), which is not an employment case, the court advised that, " n evaluating whether the defendant's conduct was outrageous, it is `not . . . enough that the defendant has acted with an intent which is tortuous or even criminal, or that he has intended to inflict emotional distress, or even that his conduct has been characterized by "malice," or a degree of aggravati
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