Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — D2 52293-4-II Published Opinion.pdf

Citation: Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — D2 52293-4-II Published Opinion.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
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Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/D2%2052293-4-II%20Published%20Opinion.pdf ↗

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As discussed above, an employee can satisfy his or her burden of showing a prima facie

case of retaliation based on the employer’s knowledge of the protected activity and the proximity

in time between that activity and the termination. See Cornwell, 192 Wn.2d at 415-16. The

court in Cornwell stated that causation – one of the elements of a prima facie case – could be

inferred from proximity in time. Id. at 416.

However, the court in Cornwell did not state that the proximity in time between a

protected activity and termination created an inference for purposes of showing that retaliation

was a significant motivating factor in the termination.

In Currier v. Northland Services, Inc., the court broadly stated that “if an employee

establishes that he or she participated in statutorily protected opposition activity, the employer

knew about the opposition activity, and the employee was then discharged, a rebuttable

presumption of retaliation arises that precludes summary dismissal of the case.” 182 Wn. App.

at 747. This statement could be interpreted as holding that protected activity followed by

termination is enough to avoid summary judgment on a retaliation claim, even without temporal

proximity. However, as in Cornwell, the court was discussing the causation element of a prima

facie case, not the pretext prong of the McDonnel Douglas framework.

The first case the court in Currier cited to support the statement quoted above, Estevez,

129 Wn. App. at 799, supports this distinction between evidence sufficient to show a prima facie

case and evidence sufficient to show pretext. In Estevez, the court referenced the proximity in

time between the protected activity and the termination and used the same rebuttable