Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 318583.pub.pdf

interference with [the Black tenant's] right to 'lease,'" and the expulsion was punishment

for trying to vindicate the rights of minorities protected by the statute. Id. Given the

allegation of racial animus, both collateral impairments were actionable under § 1982.

A second example is the United States Supreme Court's decision in Patterson, in

which it narrowly construed the meaning of "make and enforce contracts." The plaintiff

in Patterson, a Black woman employed as a teller with the defendant credit union,

alleged that on account of her race she was harassed during her employment, passed over

for a promotion, and eventually laid off. She made no allegation that the credit union

breached any contract right of hers in passing her over for promotion or laying her off.

Although the Supreme Court's narrow construction of § 1981 caused it to conclude that

her harassment- and layoff-based claims were properly dismissed (thereby leading to

enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1991), it held that her "failure to promote" claim did

state a cause of action under § 198 I-regardless of the fact that it was a collateral

consequence of a layoff that she could not attack on contract grounds. "[T]he question

whether a promotion claim is actionable under § 1981 depends," the Court said, "upon

whether the nature of the change in position was such that it involved the opportunity to

enter into a new contract with the employer. If so, then the employer's refusal to enter

the new contract is actionable under § 1981." Patterson, 491 U.S. at 185.

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No. 31858-3-111
Sambas ivan v. Kadlec Med. Ctr.

By the Jimenez court's reasoning, it was "illogical" that the credit union had the