Wash. Supreme Court published opinion — 942099.pdf

Citation: Wash. Supreme Court published opinion — 942099.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
Source verification: official_capture_completeness_unverified
Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/942099.pdf ↗

Related Parts of This Source

Full Text

1,299 chars

It is well recognized that WLAD,like other laws prohibiting discrimination

based on protected characteristics, relies heavily on private individuals for its

enforcement. Allison, 118 Wn.2d at 86. This reliance would be unrealistic, to say

the least, "if this court does not provide them some measure of protection against

retaliation." Id. at 94; see Burlington, 548 U.S. at 61-67(observing that if

anything, antiretaliation provisions should be interpreted more broadly than

provisions prohibiting discrimination based on protected characteristics in order to

effect their purpose); Robinson, 519 U.S. at 346 ("exclusion offormer employees

from the protection of[the statute] would undermine the effectiveness of Title VII

by allowing the threat of postemployment retaliation to deter victims of

discrimination from complaining"). And it would make little sense to hold that the

legislature intentionally undercut its own purposes in enacting WLAD by adopting

an antiretaliation provision that allows employers to compile an unofficial "do not

hire" list of individuals who have previously opposed discrimination against

themselves and others. However,that is exactly what ESD 171 claims it has the

right to do."* We cannot believe that the legislature intended to allow such blatant