In the first case of its kind, Washington recognized that an employee could sue for disability harassment under Washington's Law Against Discrimination, a decision troubling to employers.
In 1996, Ms. Robel suffered a workplace injury to her back while working in the deli. She subsequently filed a workers' compensation claim. Because of the nature of her injury, management reassigned Ms. Robel to a light-duty position providing food samples to customers. While Ms. Robel was working, she claimed that Ms. Ware and another deli employee enacted a slip and fall, laughed at her, called her names, and told customers that Ms. Robel had lied about her back and was being punished by "demoing" pizzas.
Ms. Robel reported these incidents to her union representative, who arranged a meeting with the store director. At the meeting, the store director warned deli employees that further harassment could result in termination. Despite the director's warning, the assistant manager and deli employees continued to re-enact the slip and fall incident. An assistant manager also made a comment about Ms. Robel getting paid for not working. Ms. Robel again reported her coworkers' conduct to management.
Ms. Robel's filed suit for a disability-based harassment environment claim. The court held she had a right to file the suit for harassment just as employees can sue for sexual harassment. The court held that a claimant in a disability-based harassment environment case must establish: 1) that he or she was disabled within the meaning of the anti-discrimination statute; 2) that the harassment was unwelcome; 3) that the harassment was because of disability; 4) that the harassment affected the terms or conditions of employment; and 5) that the harassment was imputable to the employer.
Pursuant to Ms. Robel's workers' compensation claim, the court held that the company also discriminated against Ms. Robel under workers' compensation statutes. This holding is problematic because it expands the scope of Washington's workers' compensation laws beyond their traditional protection of employees' rights to compensation and because employees have other statutory causes of action for harassment related to disability.
Perhaps most disquieting was the court's holding that the employees' comments to Ms. Robel met the high standard for intentional infliction of emotional distress, that is, were "beyond all possible bounds of decency, . . . atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community." This represents an apparent new standard for imputing liability to the employer when the activity happens in the workplace. The court's new approach is not in keeping with other legal principles so is of concern.
This case teaches employers two important lessons. First, employers should ensure that "manager" job titles are not superficial and do reflect employees' actual duties and responsibilities. Second, upon awareness, employers must stop the culpable behavior of rogue employees.