Court Opinion

ID: 9789712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:40:19.942353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:23.959887
License: Public Domain

CARDINE, Justice,
specially concurring.
I concur in the result that summary judgment not be reversed because the appeal, not being timely filed, should be dismissed.
First, I question that a Motion for Reconsideration is a Motion to Alter or Amend the Judgment under W.R.C.P. 59(e). The motion was not to alter or amend the summary judgment. It was a motion to reconsider which was to vacate or set aside the summary judgment. The court, without citation of authority, legal reasoning, or policy consideration, just blandly declares a motion not presented as a W.R.C.P. 59(e) motion to be a W.R.C.P. 59(e) motion, which in any event was not timely filed. This type of result-oriented decision adds confusion to our practice and should be avoided.
Nor do I agree with the wholesale adoption of language from Buckner v. General Motors Corp., 760 P.2d 803 (Okl.1988), establishing a rule of law for burden of proof and defenses to a retaliatory discharge claim. First, burden of proof was never raised as an issue in this case, is not before us, and should not be the subject of an advisory opinion. Second, this was a summary judgment case, not a trial in which the burden of proof might be involved. Third, I would not hold that every discharge of an employee after filing a worker’s compensation claim, without more, creates not only a retaliatory discharge lawsuit but shifts the burden of proof to the employer. Buckner, cited for the burden of proof rule which so enamors this court as to result in wholesale adoption, is another of those senseless, confusing rules that accomplishes nothing to further the creation of understandable, easily applied rules of law. Thus, it is said in Buckner that the worker need only establish termination after the filing of a worker’s compensation claim (a prima facie case) and the burden of proof “appropriately shifts to the employer. . . .” Maj. op. at 599, quoting Buckner, 760 P.2d at 806. Now, at this stage, the employer has the burden of proof and the employee has the burden of persuasion, for the adopted quote further states, “the burden of persuasion never shifts[,] and the employee bears the burden of persuasion that the reason given for termination was pretextual.” Maj. op. at 599, quoting Buckner, 760 P.2d at 807. The essence of the rule is that this is a type of prima facie case that carries no presumption; requires no evidence to rebut; and may not, even in the absence of employer rebuttal evidence, result in judgment, for the burden of persuasion remains with the employee. If the employee fails to persuade, no matter what the burden, judgment will be for the employer. That is no rule at all. It is nonsense.
Were this question presented here, I would hold that the burden to prove a retaliatory discharge is always with the worker making the claim and does not shift to the employer. If the evidence of the worker making a claim of retaliatory dis*602charge preponderates over that of the employer, the worker should prevail, otherwise he should not.