Wash. Supreme Court published opinion — 948461.pdf

Citation: Wash. Supreme Court published opinion — 948461.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
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Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/948461.pdf ↗

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step in this case—the plaintiff's burden to establish a prima facie case of

discrimination. Scrivener, 181 Wn.2d at 446.'"Ordinarily the prima facie case must, in

the nature of things, be shown by circumstantial evidence, since the employer is not

apt to announce retaliation as his motive.'" Wllmot v. Kaiser Alum. & Chem. Corp.,

118 Wn.2d 46, 69, 821 P.2d 18 (1991)(quoting 1 Lex K. Larson, Unjust Dismissal

§ 6.05[5], at 6-51 (1988)); see also Currier v. Northland Servs., Inc., 182 Wn. App.

733, 746-47, 332 P.3d 1006 (2014)('"Because employers rarely will reveal they are

motivated by retaliation, plaintiffs ordinarily must resort to circumstantial evidence to

demonstrate retaliatory purpose.'"(internal quotation marks omitted)(quoting Estevez

V. Faculty Club of Univ. of Wash., 129 Wn. App. 774, 799, 120 P.3d 579 (2005))).

3 McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 8. Ct. 1817, 36 L. Ed. 2d 668 (1973).
For the current opinion, go to https://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/wareports/.
Cornwell(Dawn) v. Microsoft Corp.
No. 94846-1

To establish a prima facie case of retaliation, an employee must show three

things:(1)the employee took a statutorily protected action,(2)the employee suffered

an adverse employment action, and (3) a causal link between the employee's

protected activity and the adverse employment action. Currier, 182 Wn. App. at 742;

see also Wilmot, 118 Wn.2d at 68 (establishing the retaliation test in the worker's

compensation context).

Here, Microsoft alleges that Cornwell has failed to produce sufficient evidence

for the first and third elements of her prima facie case.'' Because the Court of Appeals

declined to address whether Cornwell's lawsuit against Microsoft was a protected