Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 723421.pdf

Citation: Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 723421.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
Source verification: official_capture_completeness_unverified
Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/723421.pdf ↗

Related Parts of This Source

Full Text

1,667 chars

24
             
No. 72342-1-1/25

though evidence of the misconduct that constituted a breach of his fiduciary duty

was admissible, evidence of the second jury's verdict, including the actual verdict

form, should not have been admitted in light of the principles of relevancy and

prejudice. This version of his argument was presented to the trial court.

After the trial court granted Corbis's motion precluding Lodis from

relitigating the breach of fiduciary duty claim, Lodis attempted to parse the jury's

finding that Lodis had failed to record vacation time from its verdict that he

breached a fiduciary duty owed to Corbis, arguing:

He [(Lodis)] cannot say that "I did not fail to record my vacation."
We accept that. That has nothing to do with whether or not they get
to hear breach of fiduciary duty. That's a whole separate issue
because it is only relevant on the issue of after-acquired evidence.
And it's not the breach that's relevant; it's the failure to record
because Shenk alone will say, "I would have fired him for that."
So I think that's pretty straightforward, Your Honor. They
don't get to say breach of fiduciary duty.

Lodis's argument fails to recognize that the fact that Lodis's failure to record
vacation time constituted a breach of a fiduciary duty owed to Corbis was

separately relevant to Corbis's after-acquired evidence defense.

"The 'after-acquired evidence' doctrine precludes or limits an employee

from receiving remedies for wrongful discharge if the employer later 'discovers'

evidence of wrongdoing that would have led to the employee's termination had