Mack

FACTS

Background As always in the context of reviewing a demurrer we consider the facts alleged in the operative complaint to be true. (Moore v. Regents of University of California (1990) 51 Cal.3d 120, 125.) We may also consider matters that are judicially noticed. (Serrano v. Priest (1971) 5 Cal.3d 584, 591.) Examined in the light of these rules, these are the facts in this case. Hawthorne hired Mack in April 1999. Hawthorne hired Gossett in March 2002. Both eventually ended up working in the city‟s Housing Department, which administers a federal housing subsidy program commonly known as “Section 8.” Mack worked as a “Housing Specialist.” Gossett worked as a “Section 8 Housing Inspector.” In January 2006, Hawthorne‟s city manager, Jag Pathirana, and the director of the city‟s Housing Department, Hamid Pournamdari, fired Gossett after she exercised her California Family Rights Act medical leave rights and went out on an approved medical leave for treatment of lupus. Gossett successfully appealed her termination, and, in July 2006, Pathirana and Pournamdari “were forced to return Gossett back to work.”3 In the same general time frame (May 2006), Pathirana fired Rose McKinney, an…