Supreme Court Reverses Appellate Decision Overturning King County Retaliation Verdict
The Washington State Supreme Court handed down an en banc opinion on Thursday, reversing a lower appellate court’s decision that had overturned a retaliation verdict against King County in an employment discrimination lawsuit.
In a unanimous decision authored by Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis, the state’s high court ruled that while a Pierce County Superior Court judge provided a potentially misleading jury instruction regarding what constitutes an “adverse employment action,” the error did not prejudice the county’s case.
The Origins of the Legal Battle
The lawsuit stems from a series of workplace conflicts involving Reynaldo S. Verduzco, who has worked for the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks since 1992.
According to the Supreme Court opinion, the events leading to the retaliation claim began after Verduzco, who is Latino and uses hearing aids, was promoted to program manager in 2018 and subsequently raised concerns about potential bias in a hiring policy.
Verduzco alleged his section manager responded by yelling and berating him, making him feel his decisions were not being taken seriously because of his ethnicity.
The county’s human resources department investigated and concluded there had been no discrimination directed at Verduzco.
However, HR warned him about his approach and the tone and quantity of his e-mails. Verduzco’s supervisor subsequently issued a letter of expectations directing him to act professionally.
Tensions escalated over the following months. After Verduzco led a team meeting discussing the impact of a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, and a subsequent disagreement arose over a colleague attending his meetings uninvited, Verduzco and his supervisor, Charles Wu, attended a government race equity conference.
At the conference, Wu claimed Verduzco yelled, used profanity, and explicitly named several DNRP leaders as perpetuating racism. Verduzco maintained he did not yell or direct his comments at anyone.
Following this incident, and another dispute where Verduzco used his county e-mail to accuse a parking attendant of racist behavior after receiving a ticket, he received a substandard performance review and another letter of expectations.
The county then placed Verduzco on paid administrative leave for five months, altering the door codes to revoke his building access while investigations continued. He ultimately received a five-day unpaid suspension.
Upon his return, he was reassigned to a role with the same pay and classification but less responsibility, an action he described as feeling like a demotion.
A Confusing Jury Instruction
Verduzco sued King County under the Washington Law Against Discrimination, bringing claims of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and disability, as well as a claim of retaliation.
Following a trial in Pierce County Superior Court before Judge Garold E. Johnson, a jury found that the county did not discriminate against Verduzco based on his protected statuses.
However, the jury determined that the county had unlawfully retaliated against him for raising his concerns.
King County appealed the verdict, focusing on “Instruction 8,” a jury instruction proposed by Verduzco and approved by Judge Johnson over the county’s objections.
The instruction combined two separate legal definitions from the Washington Pattern Jury Instructions for an “adverse employment action”—one meant for discrimination claims and one for retaliation claims.
In a July 2024 unpublished opinion, the Court of Appeals Division II agreed with the county, concluding the combined instruction was erroneous, and ordered a new trial for the retaliation claim.
The Supreme Court’s Ruling
In Thursday’s decision, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals.
Writing for the court, Justice Montoya-Lewis acknowledged that combining the two pattern definitions into a single instruction without further direction was ambiguous and potentially misleading to the jury.
However, the court emphasized that an erroneous jury instruction only warrants a reversal if it actually prejudices the challenging party.
The justices reasoned that by combining the two definitions, the trial court effectively narrowed the scope of actions the jury could consider.
This ambiguity arguably made it more difficult for Verduzco to prove his retaliation claim and easier for King County to defend itself.
“Rather than prejudicing the county, instruction 8 seems to have benefited it,” Montoya-Lewis wrote. “The instruction allowed the county to argue its theory of the case: that the unpaid suspension was the only adverse action it took and that doing so was justified, not retaliatory.”
Because King County failed to demonstrate that it was harmed by the misleading instruction, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ decision to grant a new trial based on that issue.
The high court remanded the case back to the Court of Appeals to resolve several additional issues raised in King County’s initial appeal that had been left undecided.