Court Opinion

ID: 9572448
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:41:44.029615+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:56.359487
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM A. BABLITCH, J.
(dissenting). Connie Liebrandt was discriminated against by her employer, Marten Transport. Marten Transport violated the law. Both of these facts are uncontested.
Who wins? "Marten Transport!" says the majority. Marten Transport receives no penalty for its discrimina*1031tory practice of failing to hire Ms. Liebrandt because she was a woman: they do not have to re-hire Connie Liebrandt as an assistant dispatcher, nor do they have to give her the pay she would have received but for the discrimination.
Who loses? "The woman who was discriminated against!" says the majority. She does not get the job to which she was entitled, nor does she get any back pay for the difference in compensation between the new job to which she was entitled and the old job she walked away from.
How can this be? The reason, says the majority, is that she refused to stay on the job after she became the victim of discrimination. The majority says the doctrine of "constructive discharge" applies, and, because she was not constructively discharged, she had to stay on the job or lose all claim to back pay and reinstatement, notwithstanding a subsequent adjudication that she was in fact a victim of discrimination. The majority says that in order to be eligible for back pay and reinstatement, she must stay at a workplace that had treated her in a discriminatory manner, a workplace she was suing for the discriminatory treatment, while her claim went through the court system.
I conclude that the doctrine of "constructive discharge" in a case such as this is an antiquated concept, patronizing in its application, and inequitable in its result. I would at the very least order reinstatement. Because the majority refuses even this most elementary principle of fairness, I dissent.
We are asked in this case to interpret the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act (WFEA). Nothing in the WFEA, nor in our case law, compels the result reached by the majority. In fact, the opposite is true. Finding no Wisconsin law to support its conclusions, the majority's con-*1032elusion rests upon its agreement with federal court opinions which, in applying Title VII, conclude that unless an employee is discharged or constructively discharged he or she is not entitled to back pay or reinstatement. We are under no obligation to follow federal courts in interpreting Wisconsin law, and indeed there is good reason not to follow them when interpreting WFEA.
WFEA contains an explicit directive from the legislature, not present in Title VII, to liberally construe the provisions of the WFEA to accomplish its purposes. See sec. 111.31(3), Stats. These purposes are to make victims of discrimination whole and discourage discriminatory practices in the employment area. See sec. 111.31(3). See also Watkins v. LIRC, 117 Wis. 2d 753, 345 N.W.2d 482 (1984); Anderson v. Labor & Industry Rev. Comm., 111 Wis. 2d 245, 330 N.W.2d 594 (1983).
In applying the constructive discharge doctrine, neither of these purposes is accomplished. The employee is not made whole; in fact, she gets nothing. Discriminatory employment practices are not discouraged. Quite the opposite, Marten Transport is able to accomplish what it set out to do when it refused to hire Connie Liebrandt because she was a woman: it does not have to re-hire her.
The constructive discharge doctrine is an antiquated, patronizing concept that ought not be given any weight in interpreting our own state statute. Just a few short months ago when faced with this very same question under the Wisconsin Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), this court unanimously rejected the doctrine concluding:
The FMLA does not state that a constructive discharge is a requirement for reinstatement or back pay. Kelly Company cites nothing from the legisla*1033tive history indicating that a constructive discharge is a prerequisite to reinstatement or an award of back pay. We conclude that the only prerequisite to an order for reinstatement and back pay is that the employer violated the FMLA. Kelley Co., Inc. v. Marquardt, 172 Wis. 2d 234, 255, 493 N.W.2d 68 (1992). (Footnote omitted).
Just as in the FMLA, the WFEA does not state that a constructive discharge is a requirement for reinstatement or back pay. Nor does Marten Transport cite any legislative history indicating that a constructive discharge is a prerequisite to reinstatement of an award of back pay under the WFEA. Yet, a majority of this court today abandons its own analysis from its recent decision in Marquardt, and concludes that despite no Wisconsin legislative indication that the constructive discharge doctrine applies, despite the WFEA mandate to liberally construe its provisions to make victims whole, Connie Liebrandt, a victim of discrimination, is entitled to nothing because she was not constructively discharged. The language of the statute does not support this conclusion, nor does the legislative history of WFEA or public policy.
I would hold that a finding of discrimination alone entitles a plaintiff to redress. No public policy is served by a conclusion otherwise. The majority states the following as public policy in support of its position: employees should be forced to stay with their discriminatory employers or lose their remedies because cutting-off back pay and reinstatement to employees who voluntarily leave employment while their claim is processed encourages employees to stay at the place of employment in order to give employers a chance to remedy the discrimination. Remedying discrimination is certainly a laudable goal. But should the law require a victim to *1034carry the burden of changing someone's or some entity's unlawful behavior? Do victims of malpractice have to continue to be serviced by their negligent doctors in order to give the doctor the chance to improve or correct his or her skills or risk being compensated for the doctor's negligence? Do victims of a domestic assault have to stay in an abusive marriage in order to give the abusive spouse a chance to change his or her behavior or risk damages to which they may be entitled? Do children who are the victims of incest need to remain with their abusive parents in the hopes that they will be able to cure the abusive behavior? Of course not, and no one should ever suggest otherwise. The point is that victims should in no way have the obligation of changing the unlawful behavior of their assailants.
The constructive discharge doctrine ignores the reality of discrimination. Discrimination is a degrading, humiliating, debilitating experience for its victims. Requiring a victim to stay in that setting or lose what they are entitled to is as outrageous as the hypotheticals posed above.
The fear that countless numbers of employees who perceive they are victims of discrimination, but in reality are not, would walk off the job is groundless. Employers have nothing to fear from a rejection of the constructive discharge doctrine. If this court were to reject the constructive discharge doctrine, the result would be that only those who are truly discriminated against could leave their employment and receive back pay and reinstatement. If an employee quits and it is later determined that no discrimination occurred, the employee is out of a job with no back pay. Hence, quitting would be an enormous gamble for an employee, a gamble that will surely be taken only by those who feel quite certain that discrimination has occurred. Quitting under a questiona*1035ble discrimination claim may result in permanent loss of employment.
During the Clarence Thomas hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, questions were raised with respect to why, if Anita Hill was truthful about the harassing treatment she testified to, did she simply not leave her employment. The majority answers that question today. The majority says that an employee has no choice but to stay with a discriminatory employer if he or she wants to ensure the remedy to which he or she is entitled. As the Anita Hill controversy teaches, it is not an uncommonly held belief that employees are free to walk off their jobs if they are the victims of discriminatory treatment. Finders of fact might automatically question the veracity of a discrimination claim when the employee has stayed with the employer. In future cases, these finders of fact are entitled to know, and should be advised, that under this court's dictates the employee had no choice but to stay.
I would hold that if discrimination did not in fact occur, a person who walks off the job due to perceived discrimination is not entitled to reinstatement or any back pay. But I would further hold that if an employee walks off the job due to discrimination which is subsequently proved, back pay and reinstatement should be ordered. Once discrimination has been proved, once it is clearly established that discrimination was not a figment of the employee's imagination, ipso facto a hostile work environment has been established. An employee should not be forced to remain in that environment, an environment already rife with stress and tension due to the discriminatory practice, then exacerbated by the filing of a lawsuit.
Back pay and reinstatement is the only fair, just, and equitable result in this case. As stated so forcefully *1036in a recently filed dissent, "this state should continue its lead in assuring that individuals who are the victims of sex discrimination in the work place are 'made whole'... discrimination in the work place is an evil that must be eradicated ... and those individuals who are the victims of such discrimination should be made whole ..." Duello v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, 176 Wis. 2d 961, 984, 501 N.W.2d 38 (1993).
I would affirm the court of appeals and order back pay and reinstatement.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice NATHAN S. Heffernan and SHIRLEY S. Abrahamson join in this dissent.