Opinion ID: 1288666
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: ARA Szabo's Liability for Retaliation

Text: Plaintiff alleged in her complaint that she was terminated in retaliation for complaining about harassment and discrimination against her at work. According to the plaintiff, her complaints amounted to oppos[ition to] ... practices or acts forbidden by the Human Rights Act, W. Va.Code 5-11-9(7), and were, therefore, a protected activity under that section. She also alleged that the defendants engaged in acts of reprisal and conspired to harass, degrade, embarrass, and cause her economic loss. [9] The lower court found that because there was no sexual harassment, there was no protected activity to retaliate against. It further found that if the plaintiff's complaints could be construed as protected activity, they did not take place in close enough proximity to her termination to support an inference of retaliatory motivation. We have described the elements of a retaliation claim: `In an action to redress an unlawful retaliatory discharge under the West Virginia Human Rights Act, W. Va.Code, 5-11-1, et seq., as amended, the burden is upon the complainant to prove by a preponderance of the evidence (1) that the complainant engaged in protected activity, (2) that complainant's employer was aware of the protected activities, (3) that complainant was subsequently discharged and (absent other evidence tending to establish a retaliatory motivation), (4) that complainant's discharge followed his or her protected activities within such period of time that the court can infer retaliatory motivation. Syl. pt. 4, Frank's Shoe Store v. West Virginia Human Rights Commission, 179 W.Va. 53, 365 S.E.2d 251 (1986).' Syl. pt. 1, Brammer v. Human Rights Commission, 183 W.Va. 108, 394 S.E.2d 340 (1990). Syl. pt. 10, Hanlon, supra . In light of our decision in Hanlon, we need not dwell long on whether the plaintiff stated a prima facie case. She did. Under Hanlon, protected activity includes opposition to conduct that the plaintiff reasonably and in good faith believes violates the provisions of the Human Rights Act. This standard has both an objective and a subjective element. The employee's opposition must be reasonable in the sense that it must be based on a set of facts and a legal theory that are plausible. Further, the view must be honestly held and be more than a cover for troublemaking. 195 W.Va. at 112, 464 S.E.2d at 754. Thus, even if the circuit court was correct that there was no actionable sexual harassment, the plaintiff could still have been engaged in a protected activity if she complained about being sexually harassed. As we explained in Hanlon: The legislative purpose in including the anti-retaliation provision was obviously to encourage people to come forward and expose unlawful employment practices and to do so without fear of reprisal. By protecting reasonable, good faith opposition, the provision also advances the statutory purpose of ending discrimination by engaging private citizens to help serve as `private attorneys general.' An absence of such protection would create a chilling effect on employees' willingness to join the fight. The overriding purposes of W. Va.Code 5-11-9(7)(C), would be wholly defeated if its protection applied only to those individuals who confidently know the technical area of fair employment law and who correctly predict how its doctrine will ultimately be applied in a court of law. Given those unpredictable variables, few rational employees would take much solace in the protection from retaliation offered by such a narrow construction of W. Va.Code, 5-11-9(7)(C). ... [I]n hostile environment harassment cases (sexual, racial, or whatever), the offensive conduct often does not rise to the level of actionability until after there has been a significant accumulation of incidents. Both employees and employers would benefit from a standard that encourages harassed employees to come forward early, well before the ephemeral line of legal liability has been crossed, in order to root out the problem before it grows into an unmanageable and costly crisis. 195 W.Va. at 112, 464 S.E.2d at 754. The second element of the prima facie case, the employer's knowledge of the plaintiff's exercise of a protected activity, follows easily in this case if she prevails in proving her contentions that she complained to her supervisor on several occasions. Obviously, if her protests about Human Rights violations (even if she did not expressly invoke the name of the statute) were made to her employer, then it necessarily follows that the employer knew about her protected activities. As to the third element of the prima facie case, it is uncontested that the plaintiff was discharged. Thus, as frequently occurs in such cases, the main issue is whether there was sufficient evidence from which to infer some linkage between the protected activities and the discharge. Typically, though not necessarily, the inference arises from a temporal proximity between the two, and this is one of those typical cases. If plaintiff's evidence is believed and construed most favorably to her, then her complaints were ongoing and continued up to her discharge. Thus, an inference arises that the discharge resulted from the employer's desire to relieve itself of a complainer (about sexual harassment) and, perhaps, to solve the harassment problem by removing the victim. The inference thus raised, ARA Szabo responded with the explanation that it discharged the plaintiff because it was requested to do so by the Regional Jail Authority, who was upset that plaintiff was overheard swearing in front of inmates. That is, indeed, a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason, which could defeat the plaintiff's evidence. But there is an issue of fact here, and plaintiff is entitled to a chance to prove that ARA Szabo seized the opportunity to get rid of a protestor or knowingly [10] went along with the Jail Authority to retaliate against her. To support that contention, plaintiff could point to the fact that ARA Szabo did not originally perceive the swearing to be that serious. Conversely, ARA Szabo can argue a different inference: i.e., that if ARA were really waiting for an opportunity to get rid of the plaintiff, it could have used the swearing incident as an excuse. Thus, it was only the letter from Lt. Rudloff that provoked the discharge. Plaintiff could respond by pointing to the fact that swearing in a jail would not be an unusual event and was, therefore, not a real opportunity to get rid of her. That there are different conclusions to be drawn simply reenforces our conclusion that there are issues of fact that can only be resolved after a trial.