Under Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD), RCW 49.60, what is the prima facie case for hostile work environment (also known as harassment)? Here’s my point of view.
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HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT (WA STATE)
Under the Washington Law Against Discrimination, RCW 49.60, “an employer may ordinarily avoid liability for … harassment[, based upon an employee‘s membership in a protected class,] by taking prompt and adequate corrective action when it learns that an employee is being [unlawfully] … harassed.” See Glasgow v. Georgia Pacific Corp., 103 Wn.2d 401, 408 (Wash. 1985) (hyperlinks added).
THE PRIMA FACIE CASE (WA STATE)
In Washington, the term “hostile work environment” is synonymous with harassment. “To establish a prima facie hostile work environment claim, a plaintiff must show the following four elements:
(1) the harassment was unwelcome,
(2) the harassment was because [plaintiff was a member of a protected class],
(3) the harassment affected the terms or conditions of employment, and
(4) the harassment is imputable to the employer.
Loeffelholz v. University of Washington, 175 Wn.2d 264, 275 (Wash. 2012) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original) (emphasis and hyperlink added).
-ELEMENT (1): Harassment was unwelcome
“In order to constitute harassment, the complained of conduct must be unwelcome in the sense that the plaintiff-employee did not solicit or incite it, and in the further sense that the employee regarded the conduct as undesirable or offensive.” Glasgow, 103 Wn.2d at 406.
-ELEMENT (2): The harassment was because of membership in a protected class
“The question to be answered here is: would the employee have been singled out and caused to suffer the harassment if the employee had been … [outside the protected class]?” See id. “This statutory criterion requires that the [protected class] … of the plaintiff-employee be the motivating factor for the unlawful discrimination.” See id.
-ELEMENT (3): The harassment affected the terms or conditions of employment
“Casual, isolated or trivial manifestations of a discriminatory environment do not affect the terms or conditions of employment to a sufficiently significant degree to violate the law.” Id.; cf. Gregory A. Williams, Esq., Stray-Remarks Doctrine and Employment Discrimination (WA State), Williams Law Group Blog, July 30, 2021 (Washington Courts do not apply the Stray-Remarks Doctrine to employment discrimination cases). In addition, “[t]he harassment must be sufficiently pervasive so as to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment.” Glasgow, 103 Wn.2d at 406.
-ELEMENT (4): The harassment is imputable to the employer
WHERE OWNER, MANAGER, PARTNER, OR CORPORATE OFFICER HARASSES: “Where an owner, manager, partner or corporate officer personally participates in the harassment, this element is met by such proof.” Id. at 407.
WHERE SUPERVISORS OR CO-WORKERS HARASS: “To hold an employer responsible for the discriminatory work environment created by a plaintiff’s supervisor(s) or co-worker(s), the employee must show that the employer[:]
(a) authorized, knew, or should have known of the harassment and
(b) failed to take reasonably prompt and adequate corrective action.
Id. (emphasis and paragraph formatting added). “This may be shown by proving[:]
(a) that complaints were made to the employer through higher managerial or supervisory personnel or by proving such a pervasiveness of sexual harassment at the work place as to create an inference of the employer’s knowledge or constructive knowledge of it and
(b) that the employer’s remedial action was not of such nature as to have been reasonably calculated to end the harassment.”
Id. (emphasis and paragraph formatting added).
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