Court Opinion

ID: 9675859
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:07:47.956515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:13:31.820207
License: Public Domain

Gerrard, L,
concurring.
I join fully in the majority opinion. I write separately to address two issues raised by the dissenting opinion. The dissent advances these primary contentions: that our holding unwisely expands our retaliatory discharge rule announced in Jackson v. Morris Communications Corp.1 and that the issue of retaliatory demotion should be addressed only by the Legislature. I respectfully disagree. The Legislature certainly could, if it *867chose, follow the example of other states and address the issues presented in this case, but that does not preclude this court from acting upon the public policy already expressed in the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act. And the statutes enacted in other states, relied upon by the dissent, actually demonstrate that a rule protecting employees from retaliatory demotion is practical and fair.
The dissenting opinion begins by asserting that we are expanding the “narrow exception” to the at-will employment doctrine that we adopted in Jackson into a new theory of liability for retaliatory demotion. I simply do not agree with the articulated basis for making a distinction in these circumstances. We explained in Jackson that the overriding purpose of the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act2 w.ould be seriously frustrated if employers were able to prevent employees from filing claims through the threat of discharge. The same is true for retaliation short of discharge — the only difference is the nature and extent of the damage suffered by the employee.3 The Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act is equally subverted if an employer can threaten a potential claimant with retaliation that is short of discharge but substantial enough to deter the filing of a claim.
The dissenting opinion suggests that today’s holding may prove unworkable. But the dissent’s argument is contrary to decades of experience with similar rules, in Nebraska and other jurisdictions. As the dissent notes, many other jurisdictions have enacted statutes that protect workers’ compensation claimants from retaliation.4 Those statutes generally bar an employer from *868“discriminating” against a claimant, but have been understood to give rise to civil remedies for retaliation short of discharge.5 Yet those states answered the questions posed by the dissent and avoided the calamities that the dissent predicts.
They have done so because their laws, and our holding, are not, as the dissenting opinion suggests, radical departures from well-settled law. Rather, they apply a well-settled, developed, and extensive body of law regarding discrimination and retaliation. Our Legislature has enacted comparable antidiscrimination statutes in a variety of contexts.6 And this court has already been required to address circumstances involving employer action short of discharge.7
We have handled those situations, as have other jurisdictions, by incorporating the McDonnell Douglas8 burden-shifting analysis familiar from discrimination cases.9 Most recently, in Riesen v. Irwin Indus. Tool Co.,10 we applied that burden-shifting analysis to a case involving retaliatory discharge for filing a workers’ compensation claim. We explained that “[t]o establish a prima facie case of unlawful retaliation, an employee must show that he or she participated in a protected activity, that the employer took an adverse employment action against him or her, and that a causal connection existed between the protected *869activity and the adverse employment action.”11 If the employee succeeds in proving a prima facie case, the burden shifts to the employer to articulate some legitimate, lawful reason for the adverse employment action. If the employer articulates a nondiscriminatory reason for disparate treatment of the employee, the employee maintains the burden of proving that the stated reason was pretextual.12
As we noted in Riesen, most jurisdictions have applied this burden-shifting analysis to workers’ compensation retaliatory discharge cases.13 But as we implied in Riesen, this framework is also applicable to other “adverse employment action[s].”14 And other jurisdictions have applied that burden-shifting framework to claims of retaliation short of discharge against workers’ compensation claimants.15 This has allowed those courts to take advantage of the breadth of jurisprudence in which a burden-shifting analysis has been used to resolve similar claims of adverse employment actions.16
The dissenting opinion poses a number of questions about various issues of fact courts may be asked to decide. But in any given case, the issue will always be whether the employer has engaged in actions that violate public policy, and courts have routinely examined similar questions in a wide variety of cases. In particular, courts have routinely addressed issues of workplace discrimination and retaliation involving employer action other than discharge.171 do not understand why those issues will be more difficult to address when the alleged retaliation is based on a workers’ compensation claim, as opposed to any other *870activity protected by public policy. While a work-related injury may bring about legitimate temporary or permanent changes in an employment relationship, I respectfully suggest that the law is well equipped to ferret out substantial claims of retaliatory demotion versus petty complaints by the employee or legitimate changes in employment by the employer.
The well-understood principles of antidiscrimination law provide more clarity than the dissent’s proposed rule, which would present the difficult problem of separating “constructive discharge” from lesser forms of retaliation.18 And if an identified public policy is important enough that a wrongful discharge claim should be allowed, then it is important enough to support a claim based on lesser acts of an employer that may just as effectively contravene a clear mandate of public policy.19 The common-law principles of at-will employment have already adapted to functionally identical restrictions. Employers in Nebraska should already be familiar with the hazards of retaliatory “adverse employment actions” other than termination, due to similar rules against retaliation imposed by other state and federal laws.20
Nor do I believe the dissent’s fears of undue interference with the employment relationship are justified. It is well understood that some threshold level of substantiality must be met for a plaintiff to make a prima facie case of unlawful retaliation.21 *871A plaintiff sustains an “adverse employment action,” as we used the phrase in Riesen,22 if he or she suffers a materially adverse change in the terms and conditions of employment.23 To be materially adverse, a change in working conditions must be a significant change in employment status, more disruptive than a mere inconvenience or an alteration of job responsibilities.24 As the U.S. Supreme Court recently explained, for the challenged action to be materially adverse, it must be such that “ ‘it well might have “dissuaded a reasonable worker”’” from engaging in the activity protected by public policy.25 Although the significance of any given act of retaliation will often depend upon the particular circumstances, an employee’s decision to engage in protected activity cannot immunize that employee from those petty slights or minor annoyances that often take place at work and that all employees experience.26 A plaintiff must suffer “material adversity” because “it is important to separate significant from trivial harms.”27 That separation answers the questions posed by the dissenting opinion.
The dissent concludes that any further restrictions on at-will employment should be expressly imposed by the Legislature. I do not disagree that the Legislature could address the issue or that it is the function of the Legislature through the enactment of statutes to declare what is the law and public policy of this state.28 The Legislature could resolve any lingering doubts about the scope of protection afforded to workers’ compensation *872claimants by enacting an antiretaliation statute similar to those of other jurisdictions.
But it was the very point of Jackson v. Morris Communications Corp 29 that the Legislature has declared the public policy of this state, by enacting the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act. We recognized that the Legislature enacted the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act to relieve injured workers from the adverse economic effects caused by a work-related injury or occupational disease and that important public purpose would be undermined by a rule which allowed fear of retaliation for the filing of a claim. Our holdings in this case and Jackson are equally based on the “clear mandate of public policy” that the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act presents.30 Our decision in Jackson met with the Legislature’s acquiescence,31 and there is no reason to believe that our application today of the same principle is any less a reflection of legislatively declared public policy.
If anything, the dissent would frustrate the Legislature’s stated public policy by opening a loophole in Jackson that could quickly subsume its holding. The Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act would lose its meaning if the benefits it provides could be reclaimed by an employer’s retaliatory action, even if that retaliation stops short of discharge. Because the majority’s holding is a more workable rule, guided by ample precedent, and provides greater protection for clearly established public policy, I concur in the majority’s decision.
McCormack and Miller-Lerman, JJ., join in this concurrence.

 Jackson v. Morris Communications Corp., 265 Neb. 423, 657 N.W.2d 634 (2003).

 Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-101 et seq. (Reissue 2004 & Cum. Supp. 2006).

 See, Brigham v. Dillon Companies, Inc., 262 Kan. 12, 935 P.2d 1054 (1997); White v. State, 131 Wash. 2d 1, 929 P.2d 396 (1997) (Madsen, J., concurring); Garcia v. Rockwell Intern. Corp., 187 Cal. App. 3d 1556, 232 Cal. Rptr. 490 (1986).

 See, e.g., Conn. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 31-290a (West 2003); Mo. Ann. Stat. § 287.780 (West 2005); N.Y. Workers’ Comp. Law § 120 (McKinney 2006); N.C. Gen. Stat. § 95-241 (2005); Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 4123.90 (LexisNexis 2001); S.C. Code Ann. § 41-1-80 (West Cum. Supp. 2006); Tex. Lab. Code Ann. § 451-001 (Vernon 2006); Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 21, § 710 (2003); Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 51.48.025(1) (West 2002).

 See, e.g., Mele v. City of Hartford, 270 Conn. 751, 855 A.2d 196 (2004); Robel v. Roundup Corp., 148 Wash. 2d 35, 59 P.3d 611 (2002); Murray v. St. Michael’s College, 164 Vt. 205, 667 A.2d 294 (1995); Garcia v. Levi Strauss & Co., 85 S.W.3d 362 (Tex. App. 2002); Palermo v. Tension Envelope Corp., 959 S.W.2d 825 (Mo. App. 1997).

 See, e.g., Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 48-1004 and 48-1114 (Reissue 2004).

 See, Fraternal Order of Police v. County of Douglas, 270 Neb. 118, 699 N.W.2d 820 (2005); Humphrey v. Nebraska Public Power Dist., 243 Neb. 872, 503 N.W.2d 211 (1993).

 See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S. Ct. 1817, 36 L. Ed. 2d 668 (1973).

 See, Fraternal Order of Police, supra note 7; Humphrey, supra note 7; Helvering v. Union Pacific RR. Co., 13 Neb. App. 818, 703 N.W.2d 134 (2005).

 Riesen v. Irwin Indus. Tool Co., 272 Neb. 41, 717 N.W.2d 907 (2006).

 Id. at 48-49, 717 N.W.2d at 915.

 See id.

 Id. (citing cases).

 See id. at 49, 717 N.W.2d at 915.

 See, e.g., Mele, supra note 5; Murray, supra note 5; Garcia, supra note 5.

 See, e.g., Galabya v. New York City Bd. of Educ., 202 F.3d 636 (2d Cir. 2000); Sanchez v. Denver Public Schools, 164 F.3d 527 (10th Cir. 1998); Wideman v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 141 F.3d 1453 (11th Cir. 1998).

 See White, supra note 3 (Madsen, J., concurring).

 See, e.g., National Sec. Ins. Co. v. Donaldson, 664 So. 2d 871 (Ala. 1995).

 See White, supra note 3 (Madsen, J., concurring).

 See, e.g., Meyers v. Starke, 420 F.3d 738 (8th Cir. 2005); Jacoh-Mua v. Veneman, 289 F.3d 517 (8th Cir. 2002) (retaliatory demotion); Bradley v. Widnall, 232 F.3d 626 (8th Cir. 2000); Scusa v. Nestle U.S.A. Co., Inc., 181 F.3d 958 (8th Cir. 1999); Williams v. KETV Television, Inc., 26 F.3d 1439 (8th Cir. 1994); Carlton v. Union Pacific R.R., No. 8:05CV293, 2006 WL 3290323 (D. Neb. Nov. 13, 2006); Weigand v. Spadt, 317 F. Supp. 2d 1129 (D. Neb. 2004) (retaliatory demotion); Letares v. Ashcroft, 302 F. Supp. 2d 1092 (D. Neb. 2004); Mustafa v. State of Nebraska Dept. of Correctional, 196 F. Supp. 2d 945 (D. Neb. 2002); Fraternal Order of Police, supra note 7.

 See, e.g., Graham v. State Farm Mut. Ins. Co., 193 F.3d 1274 (11th Cir. 1999).

 Riesen, supra note 10, 272 Neb. at 49, 717 N.W.2d at 915.

 Galabya, supra note 16.

 See id. See, generally, Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742, 118 S. Ct. 2257, 141 L. Ed. 2d 633 (1998).

 Burlington N. & S. F. R. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 68, 126 S. Ct. 2405, 165 L. Ed. 2d 345 (2006), quoting Rochon v. Gonzales, 438 F.3d 1211 (D.C. Cir. 2006).

 See id.

 Id., 548 U.S. at 68 (emphasis in original).

 See In re Claims Against Atlanta Elev., Inc., 268 Neb. 598, 685 N.W.2d 477 (2004).

 Jackson, supra note 1.

 See id., 265 Neb. at 432, 657 N.W.2d at 641.

 See Dawes v. Wittrock Sandblasting & Painting, 266 Neb. 526, 667 N.W.2d 167 (2003), disapproved on other grounds, Kimminau v. Uribe Refuse Serv., 270 Neb. 682, 707 N.W.2d 229 (2005).