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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Microsoft argues that Cornwell lacks evidence of proximity because she filed her prior
lawsuit seven years before her poor evaluation and termination. However, this argument
focuses on the wrong event. Here, Blake and McKinley learned about CornweH's previous
lawsuit only months before Cornwell was terminated. To properly evaluate whether there is
sufficient circumstantial evidence of retaliation, we must focus on the proximity between when
Blake and McKinley learned of the lawsuit and the adverse employment actions that they
subsequently took. The time between those events is a few months—brief enough to give
rise to a reasonable inference of retaliatory motive.

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For the current opinion, go to https://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/wareports/.
Corn weII(Dawn) v. Microsoft Corp.
No. 94846-1

that an employee engaged in protected action.''^ It requires sufficient evidence to
reasonably infer "both that[a supervisor] either knew or suspected" that an employee

took a protected action "and that there was a causal connection between this

knowledge or suspicion and [the employee's] termination." Hernandez v. Spacelabs

Med. Inc., 343 F.3d 1107, 1113 (9th Cir. 2003). This standard applies, for example,

when a supervisor has actual knowledge that a complaint was made but has only a

suspicion regarding who made the complaint and subsequently takes an adverse

employment action based on that suspicion.

In Hernandez, the Ninth Circuit court held that a supervisor's suspicion that a

particular employee was the one who filed a sexual harassment report was enough to

survive summary judgment after the supervisor fired the suspected employee. Id. In

that case, an employee learned that his coworker was allegedly harassed by a