The Relationship Between Hostile Work Environment and Constructive Discharge
Employees who experience workplace discrimination often hear the terms hostile work environment and constructive discharge used together. Although the claims are related, they address different harms and require different levels of proof. In many cases, a hostile work environment can provide the factual basis for a constructive discharge claim when conditions become so intolerable that resignation becomes the only reasonable option.
Hostile Work Environment
The Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) recognizes a claim for a hostile work environment. A workplace becomes unlawfully hostile when discriminatory conduct is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment. Robel v. Roundup Corp., 148 Wn.2d 35, 43-44 (2002); Glasgow v. Georgia-Pacific Corp., 103 Wn.2d 401, 406 (1985).
Like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, WLAD requires courts to examine the totality of the circumstances, including:
The frequency of discriminatory conduct;
The severity of the conduct;
Whether the conduct is physically threatening or humiliating, rather than merely offensive; and
Whether the conduct unreasonably interferes with work performance.
Constructive Discharge
Constructive discharge occurs when working conditions become so intolerable that a reasonable employee would feel compelled to resign. To establish constructive discharge, an employee must prove:
The employer deliberately created or permitted intolerable working conditions;
A reasonable person in the employee's position would have felt forced to resign; and
The employee resigned because of those conditions.
Glasgow v. Georgia-Pacific Corp., 103 Wn.2d 401, 408 (1985); Sneed v. Barna, 80 Wn. App. 843, 849 (1996).
The key question is whether the work environment became "so difficult or unpleasant that a reasonable person in the employee's shoes would have felt compelled to resign."
How the Claims Intersect
A hostile work environment does not automatically amount to constructive discharge. However, when discriminatory harassment or other unlawful conduct becomes severe enough to make continued employment objectively intolerable, the hostile work environment may support a constructive discharge claim.
In other words, hostile work environment claims focus on whether discriminatory conduct altered the terms and conditions of employment. Constructive discharge claims go one step further, asking whether those conditions became so unbearable that a reasonable employee would have no practical choice but to quit.
The relationship between hostile work environment and constructive discharge is one of degree. A hostile work environment may exist without a resignation, but when the discrimination or harassment becomes so severe that a reasonable employee feels compelled to leave, a constructive discharge claim may arise. As a result, constructive discharge is often viewed as the legal consequence of an unresolved and intolerable hostile work environment.