Firm Upheld in Not Hiring Worker’s Wife

The state civil rights agency has given employers more leeway to refuse to hire a husband and wife.

In a newly released decision, the Fair Employment and Housing Commission ruled that an employer could consider “the mutual concerns married couples are assumed to bear” in deciding whether hiring both spouses would create conflicts or other work problems.

Previously, the commission had required a company to show that a particular husband and wife were likely to cause problems on the job.

“I don’t think the Legislature ever really intended to prohibit an employer from refusing to have a husband and wife working in the same close environment,” attorney George Spaeth said Monday. He successfully defended a Santa Barbara-based insurance company in the case.

The commission emphasized, however, that it was not authorizing “automatic discrimination against married persons.”

In a companion case, the commission overturned a damage award of $25,800 and a hiring order that it had issued in 1983 against Simi Valley in another marital discrimination dispute. The commission had been told to reconsider the case by the 2nd District Court of Appeal, whose order led to the changed standard.

The commission, whose members were appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian, rules on complaints of job and housing discrimination.

The state law in question forbids discrimination based on marital status. But it allows an employer to “reasonably regulate, for reasons of supervision, safety, security or morale, the working of spouses in the same department, division or facility.”

The complaint was filed by Sharyn Ann Plunkett after she and her husband, Richard, both insurance agents, applied for jobs with Insurance America Sales Agency in 1984.

The company hired only Richard Plunkett, citing the policy of its parent corporation, Pennsylvania-based National Liberty, not to hire the immediate relative of any employee, including a spouse, parent, child or sibling. The job paid $200 a week plus commissions.

In a unanimous decision issued last week, the commission ruled in the company’s favor and announced its new standard for judging marital discrimination claims.

The law provides “some limited latitude for employers to assume that married couples, because of the unique emotional, legal and financial nature of the marriage relationship, may create special problems” if they work together, the commission said.

An employer can take into account reasonable assumptions about a married couple in deciding whether employment of both spouses would create a particular danger of conflict of interest or other problems, the commission said.