Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 309941.cor.pdf

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the reasons given by the employer are pretext for discrimination." Id. at 414. "The

elements of a prima facie case of disparate treatment disability discrimination are that the

employee was: [1] disabled, [2] subject to an adverse employment action, [3] doing

satisfactory work, and [4] discharged under circumstances that raise a reasonable

inference of unlawful discrimination." Callaghan v. Walla Walla Hous. Auth., 126 Wn.

App. 812, 819-20, 110P.3d782 (2005).

differs from the first case and second case, regardless of whether a finding
by the first court meets the legal standard applied in the second case.

No. 30994-1-111
Brownfield v. City o/Yakima

The trial court did not consider whether leffBrownfield established a prima facie

case of discrimination. The court instead, at the city of Yakima's invitation, focused on

whether any rational trier of fact could find that the city's stated nondiscriminatory

reason for termination-insubordination-was pretextual. We also focus on this

question.

"A plaintiff cannot create a pretext issue without some evidence that the

articulated reason for the employment decision is unworthy of belief." Kuyper v. Dep '(

o/Wildlije, 79 Wn. App. 732, 738, 904 P.2d 793 (1995). "To do this, a plaintiff must

show, for example, that the reason has no basis in fact, it was not really a motivating

factor for the decision, it lacks a temporal connection to the decision or was not a

motivating factor in employment decisions for other employees in the same

circumstances." ld. at 738-39.

On appeal, leffBrownfield does not suggest that any of these pretextual factors

are present, let alone contend that the firing for insubordination was pretextual. Even at