The CRD complaint and the right-to-sue letter
Before a FEHA case can reach a courtroom it must pass through the Civil Rights Department. The detour is mostly paperwork — but three of its traps are load-bearing, and one of them cannot be fixed after the fact.
First, three facts. Filing with the CRD is mandatory for FEHA claims — discrimination, harassment, retaliation under that statute — before any lawsuit. The filing deadline is three years from the last unlawful act, which is generous until it isn’t. And obtaining the right-to-sue letter starts a second, shorter clock — which is why the order of operations matters more than the paperwork itself.
1 · What exhaustion actually is
The Civil Rights Department — the agency formerly known as the DFEH — is FEHA’s front door. Before suing, you file an administrative complaint identifying who did what; the agency then either investigates or, far more commonly for represented parties, issues an immediate right-to-sue letter that closes its file and opens the courthouse.1 The step is jurisdictional housekeeping, but housekeeping with teeth: claims and defendants left out of the administrative complaint can be challenged later, and deadlines missed here are missed for good.
2 · The clocks, sorted
Three years to file with the CRD, measured from the last act — not the first.2 For conduct that continued over time, the continuing-violation doctrine can sweep earlier acts into a timely complaint when they form one course of conduct, but treat that as a safety net with holes, not a plan.3
One year to sue from the date of the right-to-sue letter.4 This is the clock people lose cases to — because they requested the letter early, unrepresented, not realizing they had just set a countdown running on claims they had not yet evaluated.
The federal overlay, briefly. Filing with the CRD can be cross-filed with the EEOC to preserve federal claims, whose windows are shorter. Most California plaintiffs proceed on FEHA alone — it is broader on nearly every axis — but the choice should be a choice, made before windows close.
What does not apply. FEHA claims are exempt from the Government Claims Act’s six-month presentation requirement — but a companion claim against a public employer under a different statute, such as Labor Code section 1102.5, is not. Mixed cases against public entities carry both clocks at once; our retaliation primer covers the trap from the other side.
3 · The three load-bearing traps
Requesting the right-to-sue letter too soon. The immediate letter is a click away online, and that is the problem. Once issued, the one-year litigation clock runs whether or not you have counsel, leverage, or a complete picture of your claims. The professional sequence is: evaluate first, exhaust when ready, sue on a schedule you chose. If you already clicked, do not panic — calendar the date in red and move.
Naming too few entities. Name every entity that may have employed or controlled you — the operating company, the parent on your offer letter, the staffing agency on your pay stub, the individual harasser where the claim allows. Amendment is sometimes possible; relying on it is how defendants earn easy motions.
Describing too little conduct. The administrative complaint frames the later lawsuit. Include every basis — the discrimination and the retaliation, the harassment and the failure to prevent it — even in summary form. A lawsuit is expected to grow from the complaint’s soil; it cannot be transplanted into different ground.
4 · What the process is not
It is not a merits adjudication, and no one should read an agency’s closure letter as a verdict — the immediate right-to-sue route involves no investigation at all. It is not a substitute for evidence-gathering; your personnel file, pay records, and timeline matter exactly as much as they would without the agency. And it is not something to do reactively on a bad afternoon. Of everything in a FEHA case, this is the step where an hour of counsel before acting buys the most and costs the least.
If your deadlines may be near — or if you have a right-to-sue letter in a drawer and a date you have been avoiding calculating — write to us today rather than this quarter, and put the dates in the first line. We calendar before we do anything else.
Notes
- Gov. Code §12960; Gov. Code §12965.
- Gov. Code §12960(e).
- Richards v. CH2M Hill, Inc. (2001) 26 Cal.4th 798.
- Gov. Code §12965(c).
Related writing: How California’s retaliation framework actually works · How discrimination is actually proved
This article states California law as of its revision date and is analysis, not legal advice. Reading this site does not create an attorney-client relationship. Attorney advertising.