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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burden is one of production, not persuasion. Scrivener, 181 Wn.2d at 445. Thus, to

avoid summary judgment on causation, the employee must show only that a

reasonable jury could find that retaliation was a substantial factor in the adverse

employment decision. Id. Employees may rely on the following facts to show this: (1)

the employee took a protected action, (2) the employer had knowledge of the action,

and (3) the employee was subjected to an adverse employment action. Wllmot, 118

Wn.2d at 69.

At issue here is the quantum of employer knowledge about the employee's prior

protected activity. We have yet to address this question in a case. The parties

advocate for three different standards to evaluate employer knowledge. Microsoft

urges us to adopt the actual knowledge standard used by the Court of Appeals and

several federal courts, while Cornwell advocates for either a "knew or suspected"

standard or a "general corporate knowledge" standard used by other federal courts.

Here, under either the actual knowledge standard or the "knew or suspected"

standard, Cornwell presented enough evidence to survive summary judgment. We

decline to address the "general corporate knowledge" standard in this case.®