Introduced Version
House Bill 2852 History
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Key: Green = existing Code. Red = new code to be enacted
H. B. 2852
(By Delegate Hunt (By Request))
[Introduced March 6, 2013; referred to the
Committee on Energy, Industry and Labor, Economic Development and
Small Business then the Judiciary.]
A BILL to amend and reenact §5-11-3 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating generally to the West Virginia
Human Rights Act; defining an employer for purposes of the act
as employing one or more person(s).
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §5-11-3 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 11. HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION.
§5-11-3. Definitions.
When used in this article:
(a) The term "person" means one or more individuals,
partnerships, associations, organizations, corporations, labor
organizations, cooperatives, legal representatives, trustees,
trustees in bankruptcy, receivers and other organized groups of persons;
(b) The term "commission" means the West Virginia Human Rights
Commission;
(c) The term "director" means the executive director of the
commission;
(d) The term "employer" means the state, or any political
subdivision thereof, and any person employing twelve one or more
person persons within the state for twenty or more calendar weeks
in the calendar year in which the act of discrimination allegedly
took place or the preceding calendar year: Provided, That such
terms shall not be taken, understood or construed to include a
private club;
(e) The term "employee" shall not include any individual
employed by his or her parents, spouse or child;
(f) The term "labor organization" includes any organization
which exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of collective
bargaining or of dealing with employers concerning grievances,
terms or conditions of employment or for other mutual aid or
protection in relation to employment;
(g) The term "employment agency" includes any person
undertaking, with or without compensation, to procure, recruit,
refer or place employees. A newspaper engaged in the activity of
advertising in the normal course of its business shall not be
deemed to be an employment agency;
(h) The term "discriminate" or "discrimination" means to
exclude from, or fail or refuse to extend to, a person equal
opportunities because of race, religion, color, national origin,
ancestry, sex, age, blindness, disability or familial status and
includes to separate or segregate;
(I) The term "unlawful discriminatory practices" includes only
those practices specified in section nine of this article;
(j) The term "place of public accommodations" means any
establishment or person, as defined herein, including the state, or
any political or civil subdivision thereof, which offers its
services, goods, facilities or accommodations to the general
public, but shall not include any accommodations which are in their
nature private. To the extent that any penitentiary, correctional
facility, detention center, regional jail or county jail is a place
of public accommodation, the rights, remedies and requirements
provided by this article for any violation of subdivision (6),
section nine of this article shall not apply to any person other
than: (1) Any person employed at a penitentiary correctional
facility, detention center, regional jail or county jail; (2) any
person employed by a law-enforcement agency; or (3) any person
visiting any such employee or visiting any person detained in
custody at such facility;
(k) The term "age" means the age of forty or above;
(l) For the purpose of this article, a person shall be considered to be blind only if his central visual acuity does not
exceed twenty/two hundred in the better eye with correcting lenses,
or if his visual acuity is greater than twenty/two hundred but is
occasioned by a limitation in the fields of vision such that the
widest diameter of the visual field subtends an angle no greater
than twenty degrees; and
(m) The term "disability" means:
(1) A mental or physical impairment which substantially limits
one or more of such person's major life activities. The term
"major life activities" includes functions such as caring for one's
self, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking,
breathing, learning and working;
(2) A record of such impairment; or
(3) Being regarded as having such an impairment.
For the purposes of this article, this term does not include
persons whose current use of or addiction to alcohol or drugs
prevents such persons from performing the duties of the job in
question or whose employment, by reason of such current alcohol or
drug abuse, would constitute a direct threat to property or the
safety of others.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to include in the definition
of an employer, for purposes of the West Virginia Human Rights Act,
any person employing one or more person(s).
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.