FEHA Disability Discrimination

Scope and warning#

This Roadmap focuses on disparate-treatment disability discrimination under California FEHA. It does not duplicate the detailed accommodation, interactive-process, return-to-work, medical-inquiry, direct-threat, and retaliation pages that follow.

The distinction is more than organizational. An employer can potentially fail to engage in the interactive process without acting from discriminatory animus. An accommodation claim can turn on whether an effective reasonable accommodation was available. A discrimination claim focuses on whether disability substantially motivated an adverse decision, without requiring personal hostility. Because Wallace rejects an additional ill-will requirement where an employer erroneously excludes a qualified person based on perceived disability, an employer's claimed benevolent or risk-averse intention is not by itself an answer to the discrimination theory.

FEHA and the ADA frequently appear together, but they should not be merged into a single “disability law.” Coverage, disability definition, causation, defendant rules, remedies, and procedural timelines can differ. Roadmap 012 is the federal ADA counterpart.

The factual situation this roadmap addresses#

Consider a hypothetical California clinician with a long-treated medical condition. The clinician has performed the job successfully for years. After a medical episode or leave, the employer receives medical information, questions the clinician's ability to return, imposes new conditions, and later takes an adverse action.

A FEHA discrimination analysis asks questions distinct from whether the employer handled accommodation perfectly.

Did the condition meet FEHA's broad definition of mental or physical disability, or was the employee regarded or treated as having such a condition? Was the employee qualified to perform the essential functions with or without accommodation? Which functions were truly essential? What adverse action occurred? Who knew about the disability? What reasons did the employer give? Was disability a substantial motivating factor in the decision? Would the employer have made the same decision for lawful reasons? Was the relevant entity a FEHA-covered employer?

A professional setting can add another layer: license, privileges, credentialing, site access, patient-safety requirements, and employment may be separate legal statuses. A lawful loss of a genuinely mandatory qualification can affect whether an employee is qualified; the record must identify which qualification, which authority, when it was lost, and whether performance with accommodation remained possible. A mere assumption that a health condition makes a clinician unsafe is different. Under Wallace and 2 C.C.R. § 11067, a genuine safety defense requires job-specific evidence and attention to effective accommodations, not a diagnosis-based presumption.

The evidence should therefore keep diagnosis, functional ability, qualification, accommodation, professional status, safety analysis, and motive in separate columns.

Governing law and employer coverage#

Settled. Government Code section 12940(a) makes it an unlawful employment practice for a covered employer, because of physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, or other protected characteristics, to refuse to hire or employ a person, refuse to select a person for a training program, discharge a person from employment or a training program, or discriminate in compensation or in terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, subject to statutory qualifications.

FEHA's ordinary employer definition generally reaches employers with five or more employees, subject to statutory exclusions and the particular cause of action; that threshold is lower than the ADA's generally 15-employee threshold. Business-entity agents require their own branch of analysis. In Raines v. U.S. Healthworks Medical Group (2023) 15 Cal.5th 268, the California Supreme Court held that a business entity with at least five employees that acts as an employer's agent and itself carries out FEHA-regulated activities on that employer's behalf may be directly liable for its own statutory violation. This is not a rule that every vendor, affiliate, shared payroll brand, or medical contractor is automatically liable. The Court did not decide how its answer applies to business-entity agents with fewer than five employees or the significance, if any, of the principal's control of the particular act.

Coverage still requires correct entity identification. A payroll processor, management company, affiliate, professional corporation, county, or shared-services provider should not be classified as the direct employing entity or actionable business-entity agent merely because its name or staff appear in a chronology. Determine separately: common-law employment and statutory control; whether a business agent performed an FEHA-regulated task; that agent's size and own role in the challenged decision; and any genuinely supported joint-employer or other statutory theory. Roadmaps 003–005 address entity and decisionmaker analysis.

Individual supervisors are generally not personally liable for an ordinary § 12940(a) discrimination claim merely because they participated in a personnel decision (Reno v. Baird), even though an independently covered business-entity agent can be liable under Raines. Harassment, retaliation, aiding-and-abetting, and non-FEHA claims require separately analyzed elements and defendants; this passage should not be read as establishing any such liability. The public manuscript should identify the cause of action, entity capacity, challenged conduct, and proper respondent separately.

FEHA's broader disability definitions

Government Code § 12926 defines mental disability, physical disability, and medical condition as distinct statutory categories. The latter term is not a catchall for any illness: § 12926(i) generally concerns a health impairment related to or associated with cancer (including a record or history of cancer), or defined genetic characteristics. A different diagnosis may qualify as a physical or mental disability, but cannot be assumed to fit the statute's separate “medical condition” category just because a clinician calls it a medical condition. FEHA's physical and mental disability categories are intentionally broad.

For mental disability, the statute generally covers qualifying mental or psychological disorders or conditions that limit a major life activity. For physical disability, it covers qualifying physiological diseases, disorders, conditions, cosmetic disfigurements, or anatomical losses affecting specified body systems that limit a major life activity.

For physical and mental disability, “limits” generally means making a major life activity difficult; the analysis ordinarily disregards mitigating measures such as medication or reasonable accommodation under § 12926's specified provisions, subject to their statutory exceptions. Major life activities are construed broadly and include physical, mental, and social activities and working. This test is not silently imported into the independently defined cancer/genetic medical condition category.

The statute also protects people with a record or history of a qualifying condition and people regarded or treated by an employer as having or having had a qualifying condition, including specified circumstances where the condition may become limiting in the future.

FEHA expressly recognizes that federal ADA law can supply a broader definition in a particular circumstance; where federal law provides broader protection, California's definition can incorporate that broader coverage. At the same time, California law independently provides protections beyond the federal floor in other respects.

A condition's name is therefore not the legal test. The relevant question is how the current statute and regulations classify the condition and its limitation, history, or employer perception.

Qualified individual and essential functions

Settled. Green v. State of California holds that a plaintiff alleging FEHA disability discrimination bears the burden of showing the ability to perform the job's essential duties with or without reasonable accommodation.

Title 2, California Code of Regulations, § 11066(a) likewise allocates to the applicant or employee the burden to establish qualification to perform essential job functions with or without reasonable accommodation. For a discriminatory-discharge theory about a former role, identify the actual functions and conditions at the disputed decision; do not treat generalized medical “clearance” or an employer's assertion as proof of inability. A separate failure-to-accommodate through reassignment claim may require a different job-and-vacancy analysis, addressed in Roadmap 014; inability to perform the former job is not, by itself, the answer to that distinct claim (Atkins v. City of Los Angeles).

Section 11065 defines essential job functions as fundamental duties rather than marginal functions. Evidence includes the employer's judgment, accurate current written job descriptions, time spent performing the function, legitimate business consequences of not requiring it, collective-bargaining descriptions, experience of past and current incumbents, and prior performance-review references.

This is especially important when an employer adds a requirement after a dispute. A written job description is relevant, but an after-the-fact description is not automatically conclusive. Actual practice, why the position exists, and the consequence of not performing the function all matter.

For a physician, essential functions can include direct clinical assessment, prescribing, emergency response, documentation, communication, supervision, call, or physical presence depending on the actual job. Professional discretion alone is not an “essential function”; the function is the work the position fundamentally exists to perform.

Actual, record-of, and regarded-as disability

FEHA protects multiple disability pathways.

An actual disability theory focuses on a qualifying impairment that limits a major life activity under California's broad standard. A record-of theory focuses on a history or record of a qualifying condition. A regarded-as theory addresses specified circumstances in which the employer treats the person as having, or having had, a disabling condition or condition likely to become disabling.

Gelfo v. Lockheed Martin Corp. is important because it emphasizes the breadth of California's regarded-as protection. The case rejected a narrow federal-style approach and held, on the record before it, that FEHA could protect a worker whom the employer regarded as disabled even though the worker did not establish an actual disability.

The evidence differs by pathway. For actual disability, functional medical evidence can matter. For record-of disability, historical documentation matters. For regarded-as disability, the employer's statements, restrictions, assumptions, and decisions can be central.

A public analysis should identify the precise statutory pathway rather than use “disabled” as an undefined conclusion. For a perceived-disability case, compare the contemporaneous decisionmaker's actual words and actions with any subsequently offered neutral explanation; under Wallace, the absence of insult or bad faith does not end the inquiry. Alleged disability by association invokes a separate statutory and factual pathway and should not be silently folded into a regarded-as theory.

California and federal law do not always match

FEHA often looks to federal disability-discrimination law for guidance, but California law expressly provides independent protections and can be more protective.

One prominent example concerns perceived disability and accommodation. Federal law states that a covered entity need not provide reasonable accommodation to a person who qualifies as disabled solely under the ADA's “regarded as” prong. In Gelfo, California's Court of Appeal concluded that FEHA's accommodation and interactive-process protections applied to the worker regarded as disabled in the circumstances before it.

Another difference is the disability threshold itself. California's “limits” standard generally asks whether the condition makes achievement of a major life activity difficult, whereas federal law uses “substantially limits,” albeit now broadly after the ADA Amendments Act.

Employer coverage also differs: FEHA's ordinary employer threshold is lower.

The causation standard differs as well. Harris v. City of Santa Monica uses a substantial-motivating-factor approach for FEHA discrimination, while Ninth Circuit ADA disparate-treatment law uses federal but-for causation under Murray v. Mayo Clinic.

These differences justify separate Roadmaps rather than a combined “ADA/FEHA” article.

Adverse employment action

A discharge is an adverse employment action, but FEHA can reach other material changes in the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment.

Depending on the claim and facts, relevant actions can include refusal to hire, demotion, suspension, compensation changes, denial of advancement, materially adverse assignment changes, or other employment decisions.

Not every workplace slight is actionable discrimination. The action must be legally cognizable under FEHA and connected to disability.

For a clinician, a site-access restriction, schedule removal, credentialing action, leave placement, or loss of privileges should be classified carefully. Some may be employment actions; some may belong to a separate professional process; some may affect employment indirectly. The person or entity responsible for each action should be identified.

Causation and mixed motives

Settled for FEHA discrimination. Harris v. City of Santa Monica holds that a plaintiff must show that discrimination was a substantial motivating factor or reason in the challenged decision.

A passing thought or remote disability fact is not enough; the protected condition must substantially motivate the challenged act. But absence of malice, insult, or a hostile comment is not dispositive. Wallace explains that an employer's mistaken view that a qualified person cannot safely perform essential functions can itself establish the forbidden substantial motive. Conversely, an accurately supported essential-function or imminent-and-substantial-risk defense is not defeated by mere disagreement about the employer's evaluation.

Harris also addresses the employer's same-decision showing. If the employer proves it would have made the same decision for lawful reasons even absent the discriminatory motive, certain remedies—including backpay, reinstatement, or damages—can be unavailable even though the trier of fact finds discriminatory conduct under the framework described in the case. Declaratory or injunctive relief and attorney-fee consequences can differ.

The practical effect is that causation and remedy should not be treated as one question.

Circumstantial proof and pretext

Many disability cases have no direct statement such as “we are firing you because of your disability.” Courts therefore evaluate circumstantial evidence.

Where evidence is circumstantial, the familiar McDonnell Douglas/Guz framework can organize the prima facie showing, employer production of a legitimate reason, and the ultimate question of pretext or substantial disability-related motivation. It is an evidentiary method, not an extra malice element or a replacement for the trial burden. Direct decisionmaker statements connecting discharge to an inability to “fully recover” can support a claim (Sandell v. Taylor-Listug); a record establishing an earlier independent investigation may support the defense even where termination soon follows disclosure (Arteaga v. Brink's).

Pretext does not mean that the employer's decision was unwise. A court generally does not substitute its business judgment merely because another course would have been better.

Evidence of pretext can include material contradictions, implausibilities, shifting factual premises, selective enforcement, comparator evidence, unsupported medical assumptions, or departures from a genuinely applicable practice. The weight depends on context.

A healthcare employer can rely on legitimate performance, quality, credentialing, attendance, conduct, or safety concerns. But each rationale requires a separate timestamp and evidence trail; risk judgments derived from the condition itself require the disability and safety inquiry described above. Wills v. Superior Court permits a distinction, in its workplace-threats/violence context, between discharge for disability-caused threatening misconduct and discriminatory discharge because of disability; it does not establish that any action attributed to symptoms or any clinical risk is automatically lawful. Arteaga likewise warns that close timing alone may not discredit a documented, earlier legitimate investigation.

Reasonable accommodation and the interactive process

Discrimination under section 12940(a) is distinct from the accommodation duty in section 12940(m) and the interactive-process duty in section 12940(n).

That separation matters because the employee can have different theories from the same facts. For example, even where an employer sincerely believes termination is needed, the evidence may support separate failures to accommodate or engage in the interactive process; and sincerity does not necessarily defeat § 12940(a) if the action was substantially motivated by a mistaken belief about a qualified employee's disability (Wallace). Conversely, an employer can discuss accommodation extensively yet still make a discriminatory decision, or it may establish that no lawful accommodation permits essential functions or safety. Each statutory cause of action requires its own elements and defenses.

California regulations define reasonable accommodation and the interactive process in detail. Section 11069 describes the interactive process as timely, good-faith communication to identify whether an accommodation is needed and what accommodation may be effective.

Roadmaps 014 and 015 develop these subjects separately.

Return-to-work, full-duty rules and individualized assessment

Return-to-work disputes often sit at the boundary between discrimination, accommodation, and medical-inquiry law.

California regulation section 11068 requires individualized assessment of an employee's ability to perform essential functions with or without accommodation. It states that, absent individualized assessment, an employer should not impose a “100 percent healed” or “fully healed” policy before an employee returns after illness or injury.

That does not mean an employer must ignore restrictions or accept an unsafe return. It means the analysis should focus on actual functions, restrictions, possible accommodations, and lawful safety standards rather than a categorical rule that no restriction may exist.

Roadmap 016 addresses return-to-work and medical-clearance disputes. Roadmap 017 addresses employer medical inquiries.

Safety defenses and direct threat

California regulations permit specified health-or-safety defenses but require an individualized, evidence-based assessment.

Section 11067(b)–(c) describes separate health/safety defenses concerning risk to the worker and risk to others, including risk that is imminent and substantial, after the interactive process and consideration of reasonable accommodation. These defenses cannot be established by abstract fears, diagnosis alone, or an unsupported prediction. Conversely, credible job-specific risk and the absence of an effective accommodation can defeat a claim notwithstanding past satisfactory work. The employer must identify the actual essential function and the specific medical or operational basis for the danger.

Patient safety is obviously important in clinical work. The law does not require a healthcare employer to accept a significant legally cognizable risk. But a diagnosis or history cannot simply be equated with danger.

Roadmap 018 addresses the direct-threat defense and safety-based exclusion in detail.

Potentially relevant defendants#

A § 12940(a) disability discrimination claim ordinarily names the covered employer and, where supported, a qualifying business-entity agent whose own FEHA-regulated actions are challenged (Raines). Individual supervisors are not themselves automatically liable for ordinary discrimination merely because they participated (Reno). The identity of the payroll employer and the identity of a responsible FEHA agent are separate questions; either can be mistaken if inferred solely from branding.

That does not make their conduct irrelevant. Supervisor statements, recommendations, knowledge, and information flow can be evidence against the employer.

Where several entities participate, useful records include employment agreements, wage statements, payroll and tax records, benefit sponsorship, supervisory structures, HR authority, decision approvals, management-services agreements, and actual practice.

The public Roadmaps do not infer alter ego or joint-employer status from shared branding alone.

Administrative prerequisites#

Government Code § 12960 governs the CRD complaint process. Section 12960(e)(5) generally gives three years to file a qualifying Article 1 employment complaint, subject to its enumerated extensions. Under § 12960(b), an intake form is the filing event for that provision and the verified complaint's operative date relates back to it; proof of the actual submission and statutory requirements still matters. Section 12960(e)(6)(B) provides a narrow additional period following a rebutted statutory employer-identity presumption under § 12928; an uncertain payroll entity by itself does not establish that extension.

Current section 12965 governs right-to-sue notices and civil actions. It provides, among other things, that the notice states a civil action may be brought within one year from the date of the notice.

The October 3, 2025 chaptered text of SB 477 (Stats. 2025, ch. 321), effective January 1, 2026, changes civil-action tolling in § 12960(f): when a complainant timely appeals CRD closure, tolling extends to one year after CRD gives written notice that the complaint remains closed following the appeal. The statute says the provision is retroactive but does not revive claims already lapsed. It is not a blanket restart of the original § 12960(e)(5) administrative-filing clock. Section 12965 separately regulates right-to-sue notices, department-specific deadlines, and limited EEOC dual-filing scenarios; do not transfer the department's own tolling rules to a private plaintiff without checking the provision. A written notice's date, its statutory basis, an actual appeal, and any EEOC deferral must be proved.

Because the 2026 amendments affect timing, a public article should not rely on older summaries of FEHA procedure.

Limitation periods#

The same event may also support an ADA claim with a different EEOC clock, a common-law public-policy claim with a different limitations period, or a leave/whistleblower claim with another deadline.

The shortest potentially applicable clock is the practical reason to seek legal review early. This table does not calculate a deadline for any reader.

Evidence#

A FEHA discrimination file should be organized around disability, qualification, action, knowledge, and causation.

Disability evidence

Use the minimum medical information necessary to establish the relevant legal pathway. A focused healthcare-provider record describing the condition and functional limitation can be more useful than a complete medical chart.

Qualification evidence

Preserve contemporaneous job descriptions, actual duties, performance history, licenses, relevant credentials, accommodation history, functional restrictions, and return-to-work information.

Employer knowledge

Identify when the employer learned of the disability or perceived impairment and which decisionmakers received that information.

Adverse-action evidence

Preserve termination, suspension, schedule, pay, assignment, access, promotion, or other relevant notices. Separate employment actions from credentialing, privilege, or licensing events.

Causation evidence

Preserve statements tying action to disability, timing, comparator evidence, changed explanations, safety assumptions, policy departures, and records establishing when the decision process began.

Also preserve adverse evidence supporting the employer's lawful reason.

Records to obtain lawfully#

Potentially useful records include:

• employment agreement and amendments;
• handbook and disability policies;
• job description and essential-function documents;
• personnel file;
• performance and disciplinary records;
• accommodation and interactive-process correspondence;
• medical certification or return-to-work information actually exchanged;
• fitness-for-duty and medical-inquiry forms;
• leave records;
• termination or status-change records;
• wage statements, payroll, benefits and tax-employer records;
• credentialing or professional-status documents where relevant;
• CRD and EEOC documents;
• public corporate and contract records relevant to employer identity;
• later discovery concerning decisionmakers, comparators, policy implementation and HR systems.

Healthcare workers should not remove patient records or confidential clinical information merely to document an employment dispute.

Favorable facts#

Potentially favorable facts include FEHA disability coverage supported by current statutory definitions; a strong history of performing essential functions; longstanding successful accommodation; a medically supported ability to return; employer statements reflecting a perceived disability; a categorical fully-healed policy; adverse action closely tied to disability disclosure; a safety conclusion lacking individualized objective assessment; or material contradictions in the stated reason.

A successful accommodation history can be particularly probative because it may show both employer knowledge and practical ability to perform the job. It is not conclusive if job functions, restrictions, or circumstances materially changed.

Adverse facts#

Potentially adverse facts include inability to perform an essential function with or without reasonable accommodation; a genuine loss of a legally required credential; an entity with neither covered employer nor supported Raines-type agent status; a contemporaneously evidenced lawful reason; lack of decisionmaker knowledge; actual supported safety danger; consistent enforcement of legitimate conduct standards; or evidence the decision was already underway before disability became known. Arteaga counsels against treating post-disclosure timing alone as sufficient pretext, while Wills addresses violence or threats in its specific record. These are fact-dependent defenses, not categorical exclusions.

A favorable medical note also is not conclusive if it fails to address actual essential functions or conflicts with reliable objective evidence.

Likely defenses#

Common defenses include:

• no covered employer;
• no FEHA disability under the asserted pathway;
• employee was not qualified;
• disputed task was an essential function;
• no materially adverse action;
• action was based on a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason;
• disability was not a substantial motivating factor;
• employer would have made the same decision for lawful reasons;
• direct-threat or other regulatory safety defense;
• reasonable accommodation would impose undue hardship;
• employee or employer caused breakdown of the interactive process;
• administrative prerequisites or limitations were not met;
• the wrong entity was named;
• arbitration, release, immunity, preemption, or bankruptcy affects the claim.

The merits of each defense depend on evidence and the exact theory.

Damages and remedies#

FEHA can authorize proven compensatory damages, appropriate equitable relief, backpay, reinstatement, and attorney's fees under the applicable statute. Punitive damages against an appropriate private defendant require independent Civil Code § 3294 proof (including entity-specific authorization, ratification, or managing-agent requirements as applicable), not merely proof of discrimination. Public entities are protected against punitive or exemplary damages by Government Code § 818; a county's availability as a FEHA defendant does not erase that bar. The public/private identity of each respondent therefore materially affects remedy analysis.

Harris is particularly important to remedies. Even where discriminatory motive was a substantial factor, a proven same-decision defense can restrict damages, backpay, reinstatement, and other relief while leaving different forms of relief potentially available under the decision's framework.

Economic damages also require causation and mitigation. Job-search efforts, later earnings, ability to work, benefits, and alternative employment should be documented contemporaneously.

Discovery#

Discovery can focus on:

• employer identity;
• decisionmaker and recommendation chain;
• disability knowledge;
• job descriptions and essential functions;
• accommodation policy and history;
• medical-inquiry and return-to-work requirements;
• safety analyses;
• performance and conduct records;
• comparator treatment;
• policy versions and deviations;
• HRIS status changes and audit trails;
• organizational delegation;
• communications among HR, management, professional leadership, and shared-services personnel;
• the factual basis for stated legitimate reasons;
• preservation of relevant electronic records.

Medical discovery should be proportional. A FEHA claim does not automatically justify unlimited production of unrelated medical history.

CFMG/Wellpath-specific relevance#

The CFMG/Wellpath context makes it particularly important not to confuse administrative integration with legal identity.

Inherited manuscript references to federal labor dockets using CFMG and Wellpath together are contextual lead material, not verified case evidence in this checkpoint. Shared names alone cannot establish the FEHA employer, a joint employer, or a business-entity agent. Raines adds a separate inquiry into a qualifying business agent's own FEHA-regulated conduct; Reno excludes automatic individual-supervisor liability. Neither decision establishes anything about these particular organizations without authenticated governance, contracts, actual delegation, and employment decisions.

A disability case involving shared administrative services should therefore reconstruct function by function:

• who signed the employment agreement;
• which entity appeared on payroll and wage records;
• who administered benefits;
• who received disability or accommodation information;
• who conducted the interactive process;
• who issued medical forms or return-to-work requirements;
• who defined the job's essential functions;
• who assessed safety;
• who recommended adverse action;
• who possessed final employment authority;
• whether a business entity performed delegated disability inquiries, medical screening, clearance, discipline or accommodation tasks potentially regulated by FEHA;
• the actual workforce size and FEHA-regulated acts of any alleged business-entity agent (Raines);
• whether a professional board or committee acted, what record documents that action, and whether that action was legally distinct from a personnel decision.

The same caution applies to professional status. A physician can be removed from a worksite, placed on leave, lose a privilege, face credentialing review, or be terminated from employment through different processes. The Roadmap should not attribute all actions to one entity merely because the events occurred close together.

The public page therefore uses only public-record entity evidence and general legal principles. It does not publish private medical details, personnel correspondence, EEOC/CRD submissions, or confidential litigation material as proof of any CFMG/Wellpath event.

Primary cases, statutes and regulations#

Related roadmaps#

• Roadmap 012 — ADA Disability Discrimination Against Employees and Physicians.
• Roadmap 014 — Failure to Provide Reasonable Accommodation.
• Roadmap 015 — Failure to Engage in the Interactive Process.
• Roadmap 016 — Return-to-Work and Medical-Clearance Disputes.
• Roadmap 017 — Fitness-for-Duty Examinations and Employer Medical Inquiries.
• Roadmap 018 — The “Direct Threat” Defense and Safety-Based Exclusion From Work.
• Roadmap 019 — ADA/FEHA Retaliation.
• Roadmap 035 — California Civil Rights Department Roadmap.
• Roadmaps 003–008 — defendant identity, decisionmaker, chronology, preservation and deadlines.

Federal and California disability theories need separate columns

Do not transplant the federal ADA causation, “regarded as” accommodation exception, or federal exhaustion clock into a FEHA discrimination analysis. Equally, do not assume that FEHA's corporate-agent rule in Raines decides ADA or non-discrimination causes of action.

What this page cannot do#

This Roadmap cannot determine whether a particular medical condition qualifies under FEHA, whether an employee can perform essential functions, whether an accommodation was reasonable, whether a return-to-work condition was lawful, whether a safety concern satisfies California regulations, whether disability substantially motivated an adverse decision, whether an entity is the FEHA employer, or whether an administrative or court deadline is satisfied.

Those questions require the governing records, medical-function evidence, complete chronology, entity analysis, adverse evidence, and current legal review.