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Johnson v. Safeway Stores Inc.8/17/1992
Sean Johnson alleges he suffered a back injury at work. He did not file a workers' compensation claim within the required time period, but later filed this suit against his former employer, Safeway Stores, Inc. (Safeway), and the manager of the store where he had been employed. He alleges that he was denied his opportunity to file a claim due to threats and coercion by his manager and seeks unspecified damages.
Johnson appeals from a summary judgment dismissing his complaint. We affirm because Johnson failed to make a prima facie showing in support of his claim.
We first address the nature of Johnson's cause of action. His complaint does not characterize the claim as one based upon any recognized theory of recovery. It merely sets forth the chronology of alleged events, and then asks for judgment "in an amount to be proven at time of trial." As alleged in the complaint, the events may be summarized as follows: Johnson injured his back while working at Safeway. His injury was covered under the workers' compensation law of this state. Johnson immediately reported his injury to his manager. He attempted to submit his claim to the Department of Labor and Industries, but was prevented from doing so through threats, intimidation, and coercion by his manager.
We conclude that Johnson's complaint sufficiently states a cause of action for damages. While this appeal was pending, our State Supreme Court decided the case of Wilmot v. Kaiser Aluminum & Chem. Corp., 118 Wash. 2d 46, 821 P.2d 18 (1991). Wilmot held that a common law cause of action exists in this state for discharge of an employee in violation of public policy, in addition to that provided by RCW 51.48.025, where an employee is discharged by reason of having filed, or having expressed an intent to file, a workers' compensation claim. In Wilmot, the court was specifically dealing with a case where the plaintiff had alleged wrongful discharge in retaliation for pursuing workers' compensation benefits. The court set forth the necessary elements of a prima facie case in that context, as follows:
plaintiff must show (1) that he or she exercised the statutory right to pursue workers' benefits under RCW Title 51 or communicated to the employer an intent to do so or exercised any other right under RCW Title 51; (2) that he or she was discharged; and (3) that there is a causal connection between the exercise of the legal right and the discharge, i.e., that the employer's motivation for the discharge was the employee's exercise of or intent to exercise the statutory rights.
Wilmot, 118 Wash. 2d at 68.
Johnson's complaint does not allege retaliatory discharge. However, the Wilmot case, by analogy, does apply to Johnson's claim. If an employee has a cause of action in tort against an employer who wrongfully discharges the employee in retaliation for the employee's exercise of rights under the workers' compensation laws of this state, then surely an employee has a cause of action in tort if the employer successfully prevents the filing of a workers' compensation claim by threats and intimidation.
We next consider whether Johnson successfully established a prima facie case in support of his cause of action in the summary judgment proceeding below. Johnson's cause of action differs somewhat from the retaliatory discharge claim discussed in detail in Wilmot. Accordingly, the showing required to establish a prima facie case differs somewhat from that showing discussed in Wilmot. In order to support his claim, Johnson would be requ
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