Zahorian v. Russell Fitt Real Estate Agency
Zahorian v. Russell Fitt Real Estate Agency
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting in part). I am in disagreement with that portion of the majority opinion which finds power in the Director of the Division on Civil Rights to make, in connection with the granting of specific relief and recompense of economic loss, “minor or incidental” awards of money damages to complainants for “humiliation” and “pain and suffering” (which I will refer to generally as damages
The power of the Division to award-damages is purely a question of legislative intent, here necessarily to be divined largely from the statutory language. In my view, an intent to authorize agency award of damages for mental distress in any amount — an important public policy matter
It must constantly be kept in mind that the Law Against Discrimination, N. J. 8. A. 10 :5-l et seq., and particularly, the remedy section, N. J. 8. A. 10:5-17, is designed to effectuate, by expeditious administrative action, speedy, spe
The majority relies most heavily on language in Jackson v. Concord Company, 54 N. J. 113 (1969), which held that the statute sufficiently indicated a delegation of power to the Director to award damages for economic, out-of-pocket loss resulting from forbidden discriminatory acts. The question was whether the agency had authority to go beyond specific relief and make any monetary award at all. What I said in that opinion must be read and considered in that context. The matter of damages beyond those for economic loss was not involved, was specifically reserved, and the rationale of the opinion was not directed to it. 54 N. J. at 128.
The basis for the decision to allow awards for economic loss was found in clues from the language, particularly that used in the remedy section, N. J. 8. A. 10 :5 — 17, which would have no purpose if recompense for economic loss was not intended. The analysis of these provisions is set forth at 54 N. J. at 126-128, and need not be here repeated. Suffice it now to say that the language of the section, to my belief, offers no clue that allowance of damages for mental suffering in any amount was at all intended.
Admittedly our Law Against Discrimination, as it presently exists, is a patchwork job and no model of clarity in
The remedy section (L. 1945, c. 169, § 16, p. 596), obviously originally derived from the National Labor Relations Act of some years before (now 29 U. 8. G. A. § 160(c)), authorized in employment discrimination situations, as N. J. S. A. 10:5-17 still does today, cease and desist orders and “affirmative action, including, but not limited to, hiring, reinstatement or upgrading of employees, with or without back pay, or restoration to membership, in any respondent labor organization, ... as, in the judgment of the commissioner, will effectuate the purposes of this act, and include a requirement for report of the manner of compliance.” (Emphasis supplied). The italicized phrase was pointed to in Jackson, 54 N. J. at 127, as an indication of authority to recompense economic loss. Importantly, I believe, the United States Supreme Court has said that the similar language in the National Labor Relations Act did not empower the federal agency administering that statute to award recovery for consequential personal damages of victims of unfair labor practices. International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America v. Russell, 356 U. S. 634, 645-646, 78 S. Ct. 932, 2 L. Ed. 2d 1030, 1039 (1958).
As our statute was patched over the years by amendment to forbid other bases of discrimination and to cover places of public accommodation and housing as well as employment (see Jackson, 54 N. J. at 122, n. 3), parallel patching was done to various other sections of the law, including the remedv section, to include the expanded scope. But none of these changes gave any indication of intent to grant agency
The majority also relies on decisions in other states. I do not conceive of them as substantial authority in the light of our statutory, language. New York, represented by State Division of Human Rights v. Speer, 29 N. Y. 2d 555, 324 N. Y. S. 2d 297, 272 N. E. 2d 884 (1971), rested its result on the previously referred .to statutory language specifically empowering the award of “compensatory damages,” which was construed to include all except punitive damages. The Massachusetts statute, which was involved in Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination v. Franzaroli, 357 Mass. 112, 256 N. E. 2d 311 (1970), expressly authorized the award of damages in general terms up to a limit of $1,000. The result in Oregon, Williams v. Joyce, 4 Or. App. 482, 479 P. 2d 513 (1971), rests on reasoning no more persuasive to me than that of the majority here.
Since I find no power to award damages for mental distress, I do not reach the matter of the sufficiency of the proofs thereof in this case or the question of the excessiveness of the award.
I agree with the majority opinion on all other aspects of the case. I would, therefore, modify the judgment of the Appellate Division- as that opinion directs except as to the award of damages for mental suffering.
Judge Lewis joins in this opinion.
It may be noted that the practicalities arising from a classification of power to make small awards, but not big ones, are so serious that one can properly feel the Legislature could not possibly have intended any such distinction. Apart from the matter of the figure at which the line is to be drawn, as to which the majority is silent, they must mean that, when there is a large claim for consequential personal damages, the aggrieved party has to bring a plenary suit in the courts for all the relief sought, at his own expense. See Gray v. Serruto Builders, Inc., 110 N. J. Super. 297 (Ch. Div. 1970). He will have to give up his right to the statutory administrative proceeding, prosecuted for him by the Division, with its perhaps more important attendant advantage of obtaining speedy specific relief from the discriminatory action. And he will have to make in advance the choice of which road to travel because N. J. S. A. 10:5-27 specifies that the administrative procedure “shall, while pending be exclusive” and that “the final determination therein shall exclude any other action, civil or criminal, based on the same grievance of the individual concerned.”
It is not inappropriate to mention that the questions of when a legal cause of action for mental distress should arise at all, what damages should be allowed, and how they should be proved and fixed have plagued courts for years on end. See Prosser, Torts (4th ed. 1971) § 12.
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
The Appellate Division, in an unreported per curiam, affirmed the Division on Civil Rights’ finding of discrimination but modified the relief which it had directed. The Division on Civil Rights petitioned and the respondents cross-petitioned for certification. We granted both petitions. 60 N. J. 355 (1972).
She was 24 years old, unmarried, and employed as a computer programmer analyst in Clifton. She had been living with her parents but wished to obtain an apartment for herself and her female friend who was also unmarried and employed and was 27'years old. They planned to share a two-bedroom apartment, preferably in Montclair, and in September 1970 the complainant began her search for an apartment. She first obtained the name of the respondent Russell Fitt Real Estate Agency from the telephone book’s yellow pages and thereafter she spoke with the respondent Marion J. Fanning who was employed by the Agency and was its apartment specialist. During her first telephone conversation she learned that Mrs. Fanning had at least two listed two-bedroom apartments, one over a store at a rental of $135 per month and one in a garden apartment complex at a rental of approximately $200 per month. But Mrs. Fanning told her that the owners would not rent these apartments to single girls. Mrs. Fanning would not show the apartments to her nor would she give her the names or addresses of the owners or the apartment superintendents. In all, the complainant had four telephone conversations with Mrs. Fanning and the substance of each conversation
Mrs. Fanning testified that she never, spoke with the complainant over the telephone, but that she did speak to her personally on a single occasion. She said that, she told the complainant about the apartments and that she would be. happy to show them to her although the .owners were not inclined to rent to two young, unmarried women. She said that the complainant declined her offer to be shown the apartments. The Examiner, pointing to the irreconcilable, differences between the testimony of the complainant and Mrs. Fanning, noted that she was impressed “with the testimonial candor and sincerity” of the complainant and that she found Mrs. Fanning’s description of her conversation with the complainant to be “inherently incredible.” She made the finding that “despite the fact that respondent Agency had listings of two 'available ; apartments within complainant’s price range, which were suitable for occupancy by two single young women, complainant was denied the opportunity to view and to rent these apartments by respondent Fanning because she is young, female and unmarried and wished to share the apartment with a friend simliarly situated.”
Mr. Blanos, a field representative who was employed by the Divison on Civil Rights and was twenty-three years old and single, testified that he spoke with Mrs. Fanning over the telephone and told her he- was. a salesman and was looking for a two-bedroom apartment for himself and another young male friend. She told him that one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments were available and that' she would be happy to have him check with her later that day. The Examiner contrasted the treatment of Mr. Blanos with the treatment of the complainant and concluded that while “unrelated male roommates were not regarded either by respondents or their principals as prima facie objectionable tenants, female roommates were.” Mrs. Levy, a field representative employed by the Division on Civil Rights, testified
The complainant testified that Mrs. Fanning’s discriminatory treatment of her humiliated her and caused her actual physical and emotional disturbance. She stated that during the period covered by her telephone conversations with Mrs. Fanning she was so upset and suffered such stomach distress that she was obliged to consult her physician on several occasions. Her mother Mrs. Helen Zahorian testified that when the complainant came home after conversations with Mrs. Fanning she was very upset, would not eat and .complained about headaches. The complainant told her mother that she understood she could not have the apartment because she was single and that she “felt that this was such an awful thing to happen to her and to think because she wasn’t married she couldn’t have an apartment.” Mrs. Zahorian accompanied her daughter on her visits to her physician who told her that “it was all nerves and he wasn’t going to put her through any procedure of series of tests until he could determine that this wasn’t just nerves.” Ultimately when the complainant abandoned her efforts to obtain a Montclair apartment for herself and her friend and settled on a one-bedroom apartment for herself which she obtained in Paterson, her physical and emotional distress apparently terminated; her mother testified that since she obtained her apartment “she has been fine.”
After finding that an act of discrimination in violation of N. J. S. A. 10 :5 — 12(h) (1) had been committed by respondent Mrs. Fanning, that respondent Russell A. Fitt by his concurrence in Mrs. Fanning’s action was equally responsible, and that pursuant to the doctrine of respondeat superior the corporate respondent Russell Fitt Real Estate Agency was also responsible (cf. Jones v. Haridor Realty Corp., 37 N. J. 384, 395-396 (1962); Jackson v. Concord
The Examiner found that, in addition to the aforementioned $180, the complainant should receive a compensatory sum for the humiliation and pain and suffering caused to her. She cited Gray v. Serruto Builders, Inc., 110 N. J. Super. 297 (Ch. Div. 1970), as an instance where, though there were no aggravating circumstances, the sum of $500 was awarded to' a plaintiff as compensatory damages for humiliation suffered by him as a result of racial discrimination and she recommended to the Director of the Division on Civil Rights that an award to the complainant Sandra Zahorian in the sum of $750 would be appropriate “in view of the nature of her response to the insult as well as the nature of the insult itself.” The Director, in his Findings, Determination and Order, approved the Examiner’s findings on discrimination and directed that the complainant be paid the sum of $180 for “economic loss” and the sum of $750 for “actual pain and suffering” caused to the complainant by the respondents’ discriminatory action. In addition, the Director ordered, inter alia, that respondents cease and desist from discriminatory actions, submit to the Division a list of vacancies every thirty days for two years, advise the Division of the names, addresses, ages, sex and marital status
On the respondents’ appeal to the Appellate Division that court found that the record supports the Division’s finding of discriminatory action by respondents against complainant because of her sex and marital status. It also found that the complainant was properly awarded the sum of $180 for economic loss. However, it determined that the Division had no jurisdiction to make any award to the complainant for pain and suffering and accordingly it vacated the Division’s $750 award to her. In addition, the Appellate Division set aside the Director’s order that the respondents advise the Division as to the identities of prospective applicants and also set aside the Director’s order for posting and the submission of lists of vacancies. In granting certification our concern was not with further review of the factual findings on discrimination; in any event, we have examined the record, are satisfied that the factual findings were adequately supported by the testimony, and shall therefore not disturb them. See Clover Hill Swimming Club v. Goldsboro, 47 N. J. 25, 36 (1966); Robinson v. Branch Brook Manor Apartments, et al., 101 N. J. Super. 117, 122 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 52 N. J. 487 (1968). Our concern related primarily to the scope of the Division’s power to award compensatory damages and additionally to the Appellate Division’s action in nullifying portions of the other relief which the Division had granted in the exercise of its jurisdiction as it understood it. See N. J. S. A. 10: 5-6; N. J. S. A. 10:5-17; Jackson v. Concord Company, supra, 54 N. J. 113; Polk v. Cherry Hill Apartments, Inc., 62 N. J. 55 (1972); Robinson v. Branch Brook Manor Apartments, et al., supra, 101 N. J. Super. 117.
Preliminarily, we wish to comment on the attack which the respondents made during oral argument on the nature of the hearing before the Division. They seemingly urged that the concentration of functions (N. J. S. A. 10:
We come now to the provisions in the Director’s order which were nullified by the Appellate Division. The order required that respondents submit to the Division, every
The statute vests the Director with remedial powers which have been broadly expressed legislatively (N. J. S. A. 10:5-6; N. J. S. A. 10 :5-17) and have been broadly applied judicially. Jackson v. Concord Company, supra, 54 N. J. 113. Here the respondents denied that they had engaged in discriminatory conduct violative of the recent amendments which related to sex and marital status discrimination (L. 1970, c. 80) and respondent Fanning placed her denial under oath. But the evidence adequately supported the Division’s finding that there had been such conduct and the remedial steps which would be required to terminate it and to insure future compliance were matters largely within the Director’s discretion. He had before him not only the transcript in the instant matter but also the record of an earlier consent order against the respondents Fanning and Fitt in a matter involving unlawful discrimination. His conscientious determination that the requirements for posting and the submission of lists of vacancies and records of applicants were necessary and appropriate should not be interfered with ju
Finally we turn to the question of whether-the Director had authority to award, as he did, not only the sum of $180 for economic loss but also compensatory damages in the sum of $750 for the pain and suffering to which the complainant had been subjected. Jackson v. Concord Company, supra, 54 N. J. 113 sustained the Director’s jurisdiction to award compensatory damages for the economic loss suffered by the person discriminated against; this holding furnishes ample support for the $180 award and accordingly that item presents no further problem. However, the Appellate Division stated that it did not understand Jackson “to mean that the Division can make a general award of damages such as here for ‘pain and suffering’.” It went on to suggest that if the Division were permitted to allow minor awards for pain and suffering, the next step would be to award substantial amounts for “serious and permanent physical or mental disability as the result of the discrimination.” It expressed the view that “such matters are better reserved to traditional court proceedings”; on that stated ground without more it struck the Division’s $750 award to the complainant.
The Division on Civil Rights was created by the Legislature with express power in N. J. S. A. 10:5-6 “to prevent and eliminate” and “to take other actions” against unlawful discrimination. Prior to 1970 the discrimination referred to related to “race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry or age”; since the enactment of L. 1970, c. 80, effective June 2, 1970, the discrimination referred to includes “marital status or sex.” We reject the respondents’ sugges
In Jackson v. Concord Company, 101 N. J. Super. 126 (App. Div. 1968), the Appellate Division held that the aforequoted language in IV. J. S. A. 10:5-17, even when read in the context of the goals of the Law Against Discrimination (N. J. S. A. 10:5-1 el seq.), was insufficient to authorize the Division to grant compensatory damages for loss suffered by the complainant as a result of the unlawful discrimination'against him. On appeal, we reversed and sustained the Director’s award of a sum representing the complainant’s- out-of-pocket loss. In the course of his opinion for all of the participating members of the Court. Justice Hall noted that the basic question was whether the Legislature intended to give such power to the Director and that although it was not granted expressly by N. J. S. A. 10:5-17 it was fairly to be implied in the light of the “broad language of the section” and the “overall design of the act.” 54 N. J. at 126. See N. J. Builders, Owners and Managers Association v. Blair, supra, 60 N. J. 330, 338-340; cf. J. C. Chap. Prop. Owner's, &c., Assoc. v. City Council, 55 N. J. 86, 100 (1969); State v. New Jersey National Bank and Trust Co., 62 N. J. 50, 54 (1972). He noted
Justice Hall’s opinion in Jaclcson (54 N. J. 113) stressed the legislative intent to create an effective enforcement agency which would serve towards eradication of “the cancer of discrimination” and whose remedial actions would serve not only the interest of the individual involved but also the public interest. 54 N. J. at 124-125; see Robinson v. Branch Brook Manor Apartments, et al., supra, 101 N. J. Super, at 124. He pointed out that there was no constitutional objection to legislative authorization of money damages as “incidental relief” to administrative cease and desist orders (54 N. J. at 126) and that the view that here there was such legislative authorization finds support not only from the breadth of the terms in N. J. S. A. 10:5-17 bur also from other sections of the statute such as N. J. S. A. 10:5-27. That section provides that the administrative proceeding shall be exclusive while it is pending and that the final administrative determination shall exclude “any other action, civil or criminal, based on the same grievance of the individual concerned.” Thus it appeared that the complainant in Jaclcson would be barred from recompense elsewhere and the Court suggested that it might fairly be inferred from this that the Legislature understood that “the Director had the power to award such recompense.” 54 N. J. at 128. ^
Although the approach in Jaclison (54 N. J. 113) points most forcefully towards recognition of the Director’s authority to make an incidental award for pain and suffering, such as that allowed here, the respondents urge that Jaclcson should now be strictly confined to its own facts, namely, an award for economic loss. They advance no significant argument in support other than that summarily suggested by
In furtherance of the high-minded statutory goals, courts in other states have forthrightly sustained incidental awards for humiliation and pain and suffering without encountering the spectre envisioned by the Appellate Division. See 8 Willamette L. J. 102 (1972); 35 Albany L. Rev. 782 (1971); 49 N. G. L. Rev. 221 (1970). Thus New York’s statute (N. Y. Exectitive Law § 297(4) (c) (ii) (McKin
In Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination v. Franzaroli, 357 Mass. 112, 256 N. E. 2d 311 (1970), the court dealt with a statutory provision which empowered the Commission to award damages not exceeding $1,000, which damages could include but were not limited to the expenses incurred by the complainant “for obtaining alternative housing or space, for storage of goods and effects, for moving and
In Williams v. Joyce, 4 Ore. App. 482, 479 P. 2d 513 (1971), the court dealt with an antidiscrimination statute which, like New Jersey’s statute, contained broad general" provisions but no specific references to money damages as such. The complainant had been discriminated against and the Commissioner’s cease and desist order contained an incidental award of $200 to the complainant for the “humiliation, frustration, anxiety and nervousness” suffered by her. The trial court held that the Commissioner had no authority to make the award but this holding was set aside by the Court of Appeals in an opinion which made note of Jackson v. Concord Company, supra, 54 N. J. 113, along with Professor Blumrosen’s article in which he had, prior to Jackson, expressed the view that the broad general terms of New Jersey’s statute would seem to permit the administrative allowance of incidental damages for “humiliation and mental suffering.” Blumrosen, “Anti-Discrimination Laws in Action in New Jersey: A Law-Sociology Study,” 19 Rutgers L. Rev. 187, 242-43 (1965). The opinion also noted that the Oregon statute authorized the Commissioner to direct the performance of acts reasonably calculated to carry out the statutory purposes which included the preservation of human dignity and the elimination of the effects of unlawful discrimination. It concluded that, in the statutory
In the light of all of the foregoing we have no hesitancy in determining that the Director acted fairly within the orbit of the legislative delegation to him when he awarded $750 to the complainant as incidental compensatory damages for the pain and suffering inflicted on her. There was ample evidence to establish causation and while the amount allowed might well have been fixed in a lesser sum we are not, in the light of current values, prepared to say that it was so unreasonably high as to call for its reduction at our appellate level. See Nusser v. United Parcel Service of New York, Inc., 3 N. J. Super. 64, 68-70 (App. Div. 1949); Andryishyn v. Ballinger, 61 N. J. Super. 386, 393 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 33 N. J. 120 (1960); Hacker v. Statman, 105 N. J. Super. 385, 395-396 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 54 N. J. 245 (1969); cf. N. J. S. A 10 :1 — 6; Gray v. Serruto Builders, Inc., supra, 110 N. J. Super. 297. We find that the Director’s order was in all respects within his authority and was supported by the evidence. The Appellate Division should not have altered it but should have sustained it in full; to that end its judgment is hereby:
Modified, with direction that the Director’s order be reinstated.
The lines between incidental and nonincidental should present no serious difficulties. The law is thoroughly accustomed to similar lines as, e. g., between reasonable and unreasonable (Prosser, Torts, p. 145 et seq. (4th ed. 1971)), between substantial and insubstantial (3A Corbin, Contracts § 704, p. 318 (I960)), and between “the important and the trivial” (Cardozo, J. in Jacob & Youngs v. Kent, 230 N. Y. 239, 129 N. E. 889, 891 (1921)). As Holmes so often pointed out, in law as in life, differences are generally differences of degree, and lines must be drawn somewhere. See Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi, 277 U. S. 218, 223, 48 S. Ct. 451, 72 L. Ed. 857, 859 (1928) ; Keller v. United States, 213 U. S. 138, 149, 29 S. Ct. 470, 53 L. Ed. 737, 741 (1909) ; Lerner, The Mind and Faith of Justice Holmes 260 (1943).
Dissenting Opinion
Temporarily Assigned (dissenting in part). I join fully in the opinion of Justice Hall. I would, however, add another thought as to the unlikelihood of legislative intent by this statute to permit administrative recovery of damages for mental suffering, whether generally or to the limited extent allowed by the majority opinion. N. J. S. A. 10:5-37 reads, in part:
*421 “* * * as to practices and acts declared unlawful by section 11 of this act, the procedure herein provided shall, while pending, be exclusive ; and the final determination therein shall exclude any other action, civil or criminal, based on the same grievance of the individual concerned. Nothing herein contained shall bar, exclude, or otherwise affect any right or action, civil or criminal, which may exist independently of any right to redress against or specific relief from any unlawful employment practice or unlawful discrimination.”
Reading the foregoing as an entirety, I construe it to mean that a victim of discrimination may seek relief for a particular remediable grievance in the agency or in the courts but if he takes judgment for that grievance in the agency he may not also seek relief for it in the courts. While the word “grievance” is susceptible of the meaning of the wrongful conduct of the offender, the context of its use here, the presence in the act of the last sentence quoted above and principles of presumptive reasonableness of legislative intent suggest that in this instance “grievance” means the particular injury complained of flowing from the wrongful conduct. Thus, discriminatory deprivation of an apartment rental is one grievance and mental distress consequent upon the refusal to rent is another.
However, it seems fair to say that the Legislature also contemplated by the provisions quoted above that an aggrieved person, if resorting to the agency for relief, should there seek whatever relief of any kind it has jurisdiction to award him, and that once he takes judgment in the agency he should be barred from recourse in the courts for any relief of the type he might have secured in the agency. But he would not be barred from going to both the agency and the courts if there were a type of relief available in the latter but not the former.
Under the formulation of the majority, agency relief is available for damages for mental distress but confined to “minor or incidental” recovery, presumably barring substan
On the otHer hand, construing the act not to confer jurisdiction for administrative relief for damages for mental distress at all would allow the complainant to get both his specific relief before the agency and his tort-like mental damages, large ox small, in an appropriate court. This, it seems to me, is what the Legislature intended, as fairly as one can objectively discern such intent from the statute, its history and purposes and all other relevant indicia.
For modification — Chief Justice Weintbaub, and Justices Jacobs, Mountain and Pboctok — 4.
Dissenting in part — Justice Hall, and Judges Coneokd and Lewis — 3.
By analogy to the law of damages for mental suffering in other contexts, reasonable compensatory awards of thousands of dollars for gross insult arising out of discrimination, especially if involving psychical injury, are readily conceivable.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Sandra Zahorian, Complainant, v. Russell Fitt Real Estate Agency, Russell A. Fitt and Marion J. Fanning, Respondents-Cross-Appellants, and New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, Appellant-Cross-Respondent
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- Published