California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (Gov. Code, § 12900 et seq.) (FEHA) defines and prohibits several unlawful employment practices, including (1) “discriminat[ing] against a person” because of a “physical” or “mental disability,” (2) “fail[ing] to make reasonable accommodation” for a “known physical or mental disability,” and (3) “fail[ing] to engage in a timely, good faith, interactive process . . . to determine effective reasonable accommodations.”  (§ 12940, subds. (a), (m)(1) & (n).)  An employer’s knowledge of an employee’s disability is a prerequisite to FEHA liability under any of those theories:  An employer cannot discriminate against an employee on the basis of a disability if it does not know of that disability (Avila v. Continental Airlines, Inc. (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 1237, 1247 (Avila)), and an employer cannot fail to reasonably accommodate (or fail to engage in an interactive process to reach such an accommodation) if it does not know of a disability necessitating accommodation (§ 12940, subds. (m)(1) & (n) [requiring a “known” disability]). 

When an employee has not disclosed his disability to his employer, under what circumstances will the employer be charged with knowledge of that disability (and hence potentially liable under FEHA)?  For purposes of a FEHA claim for discrimination, an employer’s knowledge of a disability will be inferred “only . . . when the fact of disability is the only reasonable interpretation of the known facts.”  (Brundage v. Hahn (1997) 57 Cal.App.4th 228, 237, italics added (Brundage).)  For purposes of FEHA claims for failure to make a reasonable accommodation or failure to engage in the interactive process, an employer’s knowledge of a disability will be inferred only if the disability is “obvious” or its “observed symptoms” “are so obviously manifestations of an underlying disability” that the existence of a disability “always follow[s]” from the observed symptoms  (E.g., Soria v. Univision Radio Los Angeles, Inc. (2016) 5 Cal.App.5th 570, 601 (Soria); Pensinger v. Bowsmith, Inc. (1998) 60 Cal.App.4th 709, 724-725 (Pensinger), overruled on other grounds in Colmenares v. Braemar Country Club, Inc. (2003) 29 Cal.4th 1019, 1031, fn. 6.)  Applying these standards, is an employer charged with knowledge that an employee suffers from an undisclosed diagnosis of bipolar disorder because, on two occasions, the employee was unusually “aggressive” and made “irrational” comments that caused his supervisor to be “concerned for his . . . mental state”?  We hold that the answer is no, as a matter of law, and accordingly affirm the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for the employer.

https://www4.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B342334.PDF