A legal update by Kirk Rafdal, staff writer for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), expands on a ruling by the Washington Supreme Court that a state law enacted on June 7, 2006 “expanding protections to gays and lesbians does not apply retroactively to the discrimination claims of a university employee.”
The update surrounds the case of a gay woman, Debra Loeffelholz, who had started a job at the University of Washington in 2003. Her supervisor, James Lukehart, reportedly discriminated against Loeffelholz and denied her an employee evaluation, promotions, and opportunities for training.
The high court ultimately found that because of language in the statute, not saying anything about retroactive application, gays and others impacted by the statute may not utilize the law to attempt justice for such discrimination if the incidents occurred prior to June 7, 2006. However, the high court noted that such details can be provided in court as “background evidence.”
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