Hostile workplace is basis for ADA claim

By Karen A. Kalzer

A worker may base a disability-discrimination claim on proof of a hostile work environment, the Washington Supreme Court has held.

In Robel v. Roundup Corp., no. 70561-5 (Dec. 2002), Linda Robel worked in the service deli at a Fred Meyer store. She sustained an injury on the job and filed a workers’-compensation claim. She returned to light duty at work. Co-workers ridiculed her, mimicked her accident, addressed her in profane terms, and told customers that Robel had lied about her injury.

Robel reported the incidents to a union representative and to management, but the ridicule and insults by co-workers continued. Management fired one employee but not the others. Robel left work and never returned.

Robel sued the store alleging claims of disability discrimination, retaliation for filing a workers’-compensation claim, and negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Robel alleged, among other things, that the defendant’s employees discriminated against her based on her workplace-injury disability by creating and permitting a hostile work environment. The trial court agreed. After a non-jury trial, the court found for Robel, awarding her $52,000 plus attorney fees and costs.

Fred Meyer appealed. Fred Meyer contended that Washington’s Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) did not permit a disability-based claim based on the existence of a hostile work environment. The Court of Appeals assumed for the sake of argument that such a claim was legally permissible but that there was not enough proof of such a claim under these facts.