Hegwine v. Longview Fibre Co., Inc.

• Decision Date: 25 April 2006
• Docket Number: No. 33174-8-II.,33174-8-II.
• Citation: 132 P.3d 789,132 Wn. App. 546
• Parties: Stacy L. HEGWINE, Appellant, v. LONGVIEW FIBRE COMPANY, INC., a Washington corporation, Respondent.
• Court: Washington Court of Appeals

132 P.3d 789

132 Wn. App. 546

Stacy L. HEGWINE, Appellant, v. LONGVIEW FIBRE COMPANY, INC., a Washington corporation, Respondent.

No. 33174-8-II.

Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 2.

April 25, 2006.

William L. Dowell, Attorney at Law, Longview, WA, Nancy Williams, Perkins Coie LLP, Seattle, WA, for Respondent.

Mark Stanley Brumbaugh, Walstead Mertsching PS, Longview, WA, for Appellant.

VAN DEREN, J.

¶ 1 Stacy Hegwine sued Longview Fibre Company (Fibre) in Cowlitz County Superior Court alleging that Fibre discharged her from employment based on her gender and pregnancy in violation of RCW 49.60.180, the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD). A bench trial resulted in a judgment for Fibre based on a disability accommodation analysis. We reverse and remand for determination of Hegwine's damages, holding that disability accommodation analysis does not apply and that Fibre impermissibly assumed that her pregnancy constituted a temporary disability that it could not accommodate and wrongly fired Hegwine in violation of RCW 49.60.180 and WAC 162-30-020 because she was pregnant.

FACTS

¶ 2 Hegwine applied for the customer service clerk/order checker position in Fibre's customer service department in late 2000. The newspaper advertisement for the job indicated that Fibre was accepting applications for clerical work and that it preferred "2 years full-time related experience of [sic] equivalent education," personal computer abilities, and demonstrated communication skills. Exhibit 1. It mentioned no lifting requirements.

¶ 3 Carlene Cox and Ron Samples¹ interviewed Hegwine on February 16, 2001. Fibre had no documented job description for the position when Hegwine interviewed. During the interview, however, Ron Samples explained to Hegwine that the job included a 25 pound lifting requirement.²

¶ 4 Cox offered Hegwine the position on February 21, 2001, contingent upon Hegwine's successful completion of a physical examination. Cox did not define what "successful" completion of the physical entailed. Hegwine accepted the offer over the telephone and told Cox that she was quitting her current job to take the order checker position. Cox then gave Hegwine a start date of March 1, 2001.

¶ 5 Hegwine completed her physical at the office of Dr. Ostrander, Fibre's Corporate Medical Director, on February 23, 2001. During the physical, ostensibly through a questionnaire given to Hegwine that asked, among other things, if she were pregnant, Ostrander learned that Hegwine was pregnant and informed her that she would need her attending physician, Dr. Herron, to provide medical clearance before she could begin working at Fibre.³

¶ 6 Hegwine reported for orientation on March 1, 2001. In addition to watching a series of videos about employment at Fibre, she was also given a variety of documents outlining Fibre's employment policy, vacation and sick leave, employer-provided healthcare benefits, pension benefits, and 401(k) plan information. Hegwine also completed a W-4 tax form and received a payroll number.

¶ 7 During orientation, Cox explained that Fibre had a maternity leave policy. Hegwine disclosed to Cox that she was pregnant. After learning this fact, Cox had the customer service department's supervisor escort Hegwine to Samples' office to review her job duties. While Samples occupied Hegwine, Cox contacted Ostrander's office to determine the status of Hegwine's physical examination. Ostrander's office told Cox that Hegwine's physicians had not provided Fibre with medical clearance regarding her pregnancy.⁴

¶ 8 Cox then told Hegwine to leave Fibre's premises while the situation was resolved because Hegwine had not successfully completed her physical. Cox contacted Herron's office and requested Hegwine's completed medical clearance form.⁵ Thereafter, Cox informed Hegwine that she had lifting restrictions, that Herron had released her to lift only 20 pounds, and that Fibre would be in touch once proper documentation had been submitted. Cox's representations to Hegwine did not comport with Herron's actual statements to Fibre.

¶ 9 After Hegwine left Fibre at Cox's direction, she called Herron's office to explain what had happened at Fibre and that she had been told the lifting requirement was 25 pounds. Even though his first form exceeded the stated lifting requirement, she asked that Herron increase the lifting restrictions listed on the original medical release form. Herron's office asked Hegwine to contact Fibre to determine what the actual lifting requirements were. Hegwine talked to Marilyn Sapp in Ostrander's office. Based on information Hegwine obtained from Sapp, Herron submitted a revised medical clearance form on March 1, stating that Hegwine could lift up to 40 pounds to her waist, shoulders, and overhead for up to two hours a day.⁶ Herron assumed that this revision would be sufficient for Hegwine to begin work at Fibre.

¶ 10 Because the two medical clearance forms differed, Ostrander contacted Herron on March 5 to determine which form properly identified Hegwine's limitations. The doctors clarified the restrictions in a third form, clearing Hegwine to lift 20 pounds frequently, 40 pounds occasionally to infrequently, and to stand for four to six hours at a time.⁷ At trial, Herron testified that if he had been informed that the position's lifting requirement was 60 pounds, he may have provided medical clearance, depending on the nature and frequency of the lifting.⁸

¶ 11 After receiving the third medical clearance form, Fibre directed its Equal Employment Opportunity Coordinator (EEOC), Margaret Rhodes, to conduct an analysis of the order checker position to establish the position's essential job functions. Rhodes analyzed the order checker position generally and addressed whether Hegwine was capable of carrying out the essential functions of the order checker position given the limitations listed in her medical clearance form.

¶ 12 Rhodes determined that an order checker must be able to lift boxes weighing up to 60 pounds, carry them 15 to 30 feet and down three or four steps, load them onto the back of a small Daihatsu truck, drive them to another building, unload them onto a hand truck, and pull them to another location.⁹

¶ 13 When evaluating whether Hegwine could perform the order checker position, Rhodes relied on the information in Herron's third medical clearance form and did not (1) inform Hegwine or Herron that the job now had a 60 pound lifting requirement; or (2) inquire whether Hegwine could in fact meet this new requirement. Based on the 40 pound lifting limitation in the third medical report, Rhodes wrote a final report stating that Hegwine did not meet the order checker position's mandatory requirements because her pregnancy temporarily limited her lifting ability.

¶ 14 Rhodes' trial testimony contradicted the written report she submitted. She testified that it would have been appropriate, given Hegwine's pregnancy, to temporarily transfer her to a sedentary relief clerk position as that had been Fibre's past practice.¹⁰ Further, Rhodes testified that Fibre could reasonably accommodate Hegwine to assist her in performing the lifting functions of the order checker position and that Fibre could do so without significant difficulty, disruption, or expense. Rhodes then testified that she prepared a handwritten version of the final, typewritten report but did not enter this latter information into the final typewritten report because "it was determined [by leadership], beyond my area of expertise," that Hegwine's temporary disability due to pregnancy prevented her from performing an essential function of the order checker position, and therefore, no further analysis needed to be conducted. RP (Mar. 14, 2005) at 131. Rhodes testified that Arkell directed that accommodations for Hegwine not be considered.

¶ 15 But Arkell testified that he considered whether Fibre could accommodate Hegwine and determined that it could not. He further testified that although he did not have Rhodes' earlier handwritten form outlining her accommodation recommendations, he would have considered it irrelevant anyway and that he would have disregarded her opinion on both the accommodations and whether the "law required something more." RP (Mar. 15, 2005) at 219. He also did not agree that it was Fibre's past practice to provide temporary sedentary work for those with temporary disabilities.

¶ 16 Arkell made the final decision to rescind Hegwine's offer of employment, based on her alleged lifting restriction. On March 16, 2001, Cox called Hegwine to inform her that Fibre was "withdrawing [its] offer of employment" because her "availability" disallowed her to perform the job. Clerk's Papers (CP) at 17; Exhibit 11. As directed by her superiors, Cox kept the conversation short and in conformity with a drafted script.

¶ 17 It is not contested that Hegwine's potential lifting restriction was temporary and due solely to her pregnancy. It is also not contested that Hegwine did not inform Fibre of any disability, nor did she ask for accommodation.

¶ 18 Hegwine sued Fibre alleging, among other things, that Fibre discharged her from employment because of her gender and pregnancy in violation of RCW 49.60.180 (WLAD). The trial court granted a judgment in favor of Fibre based on the disability accommodation analysis Fibre argued. It concluded that Fibre could not accommodate Hegwine's pregnancy-related temporary lifting restriction.

¶ 19 Hegwine appeals.

ANALYSIS

I. STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 20 When a trial court has weighed the evidence in a bench trial, appellate review is limited to determining whether substantial evidence supports its findings of fact and, if so, whether the findings support the trial court's conclusions of law. Keever & Assocs. v. Randall, 129 Wash.App. 733, 737, 119 P.3d 926 (2005). Substantial evidence exists when there is a sufficient quantity of evidence to persuade a fair-minded, rational...