Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — D2 45174-3-II Order Publishing Opinion.pdf

patient, Maddox collected witness statements and conducted some of the interviews. WSH

assigned Maddox to investigate Boyd' s threatening comments. Maddox wrote in an e -mail to

Cook -Gomez that "[ she didn' t] trust [ Boyd] about anything as he is known to lie." 3 RP at 349.

WSH relied on Maddox' s investigation and factfinding in disciplining Boyd. Therefore, a jury

could find that Maddox' s acts were a proximate cause of the adverse employment actions.

Rivera' s additional investigations are not supervening causes. Rivera' s re- investigation of

Boyd' s failure to assess the patientrelied on facts provided by the biased supervisor, Maddox. At

the time of Rivera' s investigation, some witnesses could not clearly recall the events and instead

relied on the statements collected by and interviews Maddox conducted. And, Rivera did not re-

investigate Boyd' s threatening comments. Although Maddox' s report included several different

comments and the CEO' s reprimand mentioned the same comments, Rivera only investigated one

of the alleged comments — " they may fire me, but they will sure as hell remember me." 10 RP at

1426. He stopped his investigation after learning that the witness who reported this statement had

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recanted. The trial court did not err when it denied WSH' s CR 50 motion on a lack of a causal

connection.

IV. " CAT' S PAW" INSTRUCTION

Next, WSH argues that the trial court erred when it gave the cat' s paw instruction. It

contends that Maddox did not act with discriminatory animus, Rivera' s investigation was a

supervening cause of any animus, and the instruction was inconsistent with the jury instruction on

retaliation. We disagree.