L'Oreal sued over employee who wasn't worth it

The manager, Elysa Yanowitz, was celebrating yesterday after the California Supreme Court decided that she was entitled to move forward with her legal action against the worldwide company. The ruling was described as a landmark on the road to curbing discrimination in the American workplace.

It also represented a major embarrassment for a firm that likes to advertise itself around the world with the slogan, "Because you're worth it".

That apparently was not how one San Francisco-based executive felt in 1997 when he told Ms Yanowitz to fire a sales associate working at the L'Oreal stand in a local branch of Macy's. She was not worth it to him, the court suggested in its ruling, because of her dark skin. He liked blondes better.

The boss "expressed a preference for fair-skinned blondes" and ordered Ms Yanowitz to "get me somebody hot," or words to that effect, the court said in its ruling on Thursday. "He passed 'a young, attractive blonde girl, very sexy,' on his way out, turned to Yanowitz and told her, 'Get me one that looks like that'," the court added.

In her quest for compensation, Ms Yanowitz argues that after she chose to ignore the request, the company retaliated against her, giving her poor evaluations, seeking to undermine her position and change her routine. She later resigned from L'Oreal citing unreasonable stress.

The court's decision supporting her was surprising to some experts, because while she resisted the request to fire the associate, because she felt it was discriminatory, she never actually articulated her opinion to her boss. But the court, voting four to two, said she was right simply to resist discrimination even if she did it silently.

The Yanowitz case rests on alleged gender discrimination, where her former company apparently thought it fine to demand a particular physical look from a female employee but probably would never have applied the same standard to a male employee. The California Supreme Court has never addressed the more direct issue of whether a person can be fired from a job because of how they look.

Ms Yanowitz, 59, is now expected to come back to the court directly to pursue her complaint against L'Oreal. Expressing gratitude at this first ruling, she said, through a lawyer, "I hope that this case gives other managers the courage to do what is right for those who report to them."

Her husband, Herbert Yanowitz, who is a lawyer, added: "This is a victory for all California employees who put their necks on the line to protect others from discrimination."

A spokesman for L'Oreal said the company would have no comment while the case is still pending.

Employment law experts said the ruling offers new protection to employees in the state when they have a concern about discrimination and previously would not have dared to speak up. "This makes it much stronger for all California employees," commented William Quackenbush. "You don't have to go and complain and risk losing your job because you are a complainer".