Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — D2 49631-3-II Published Order.pdf

Citation: Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — D2 49631-3-II Published Order.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
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Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/D2%2049631-3-II%20Published%20Order.pdf ↗

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Under this burden-shifting framework, “[t]he plaintiff bears the first intermediate
burden, namely, that of setting forth a prima facie case of unlawful discrimination.”
“If a prima facie case is established, a legally mandatory, rebuttable presumption’
of discrimination temporarily takes hold and the evidentiary burden shifts to the
defendant to produce admissible evidence of a legitimate, nondiscriminatory
explanation for the adverse employment action sufficient to ‘raise[ ] a genuine issue
of fact as to whether [the defendant] discriminated against the plaintiff.” Finally,
“[o]nce the presumption is removed, the burden of proof shifts back to the plaintiff,
who must then be afforded a fair opportunity to show that [defendant’s] stated
reason for [the adverse action] was in fact pretext.” Only if the plaintiff proves
incapable of making this showing does “the defendant become[ ] entitled to
judgment as a matter of law.”

148 Wn. App. 850, 862, 200 P.3d 764 (2009) (alternations in original) (citations omitted) (quoting

Hill v. BCTI Income Fund–I, 144 Wn.2d 172, 181, 182, 23 P.3d 440 (2001), overruled on other

grounds by McClarty v. Totem Elec., 157 Wn.2d 214, 137 P.3d 844 (2006)).

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49631-3-II

The arbitrator concluded that just cause existed for Billings’s termination. Therefore, a

“legitimate, nondiscriminatory explanation” for his termination has already been litigated. This

issue is identical to an issue that is the crux of this cause of action. But even if we assume that

Billings met his initial burden of proving a prima facie case of discrimination, he failed to produce

evidence indicating that Steilacoom, Schaub, and Loveless’s reason for discharging him was