Opinion ID: 2584187
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fibre failed to show its refusal to hire Hegwine was based on a valid BFOQ

Text: ¶ 24 A legal defense for refusal to hire Hegwine based on her pregnancy would exist if not being pregnant were a valid BFOQ for the clerk/order checker position. See RCW 49.60.180(1). WAC 162-16-240 is the primary interpretive regulation dealing with BFOQs in the context of employment discrimination claims. It provides that: Under the law against discrimination, there is an exception to the rule that an employer . . . may not discriminate on the basis of protected status; that is if a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) applies. The commission believes that the BFOQ exception should be applied narrowly to jobs for which a particular quality of protected status will be essential to or will contribute to the accomplishment of the purposes of the job. WAC 162-16-240 (emphasis added). This regulation indicates that to establish a valid BFOQ, an employer must show that excluding members of a particular protected status group is essential to . . . the purposes of the job. Id. This court articulated a similar standard in Franklin County Sheriff's Office v. Sellers, 97 Wash.2d 317, 646 P.2d 113 (1982). Specifically, in that case, this court indicated that the correct BFOQ standard requires an employer to establish that all or substantially all persons in the excluded class would be unable to efficiently perform the duties [of the position at issue], and the essence of the operation would be undermined by hiring anyone in that excluded class. Id. at 326, 646 P.2d 113 (internal citation omitted). Thus, to succeed with a BFOQ defense here, Fibre must have introduced sufficient evidence to establish that excluding pregnant women was essential to . . . the purposes of the clerk/order checker position, WAC 162-16-240, or that all or substantially all pregnant women would be unable to efficiently perform the duties of the position, such that hiring them would undermine Fibre's operations. Id. ¶ 25 Fibre has not met this burden; indeed, Fibre offered no evidence that excluding pregnant women was essential to the clerk/order checker position or that substantially all pregnant women are incapable of meeting the position's lifting requirement. Cf. Blanchette v. Spokane County Fire Prot. Dist. No. 1, 67 Wash.App. 499, 836 P.2d 858 (1992) (indicating that even documented medical standards developed as guidelines for determining fitness for fire fighter duty are insufficient to establish a valid BFOQ). Thus, Fibre cannot succeed with a BFOQ defense.