Emergency leave lawsuit approved

SEATTLE – Ramona Danny missed some work, but she had very good reasons: taking her son to a hospital after her husband beat him, getting herself and her children into a battered women’s shelter, starting divorce proceedings and helping police send her husband to prison.

But when she returned from her two-week leave in 2003, she was demoted. And after she complained about her demotion to the Seattle Human Rights Commission, she was fired.

The Washington Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for Danny’s lawsuit against her former employer, Laidlaw Transit Services Inc., when it found in a close decision that an employee shouldn’t risk losing a job for taking “an absolutely necessary morning off work to get a protection order, to give a statement to police, or to move her children out of imminent harm’s way.”

The decision allows Danny’s case to proceed in federal court in Seattle, but its broader effect is made somewhat moot by a bill Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law in April. Largely in response to Danny’s case, the Legislature passed a measure this year requiring employers to provide reasonable time off for workers who must deal with the effects of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.

Still, the ruling was hailed by activists, including the Northwest Women’s Law Center, which represents Danny.

All the work the state has done to combat domestic violence is rendered meaningless “if a woman like Ms. Danny has to put her job at risk in order to protect herself and her children,” said Lisa Stone, the law center’s executive director. “That source of income is a critical lifeline for a domestic violence victim who wants to leave her abuser and start over.”