Henne v. City of Yakima (Majority and Concurrence)
Annotate this CaseIn 2011, Michael Henne, a Yakima police officer, filed an employment-related lawsuit against his employer, the city of Yakima. Several other officers had filed complaints about Henne's behavior, resulting in internal investigations of Henne. Henne's lawsuit alleged that those other officers' complaints lodged against him formed a pattern of harassment and retaliation that amounted to a hostile workplace. He sued Yakima for negligent hiring, training, and supervision of its employees, which, he asserted, perpetuated a hostile work environment and entitled him to damages. Yakima responded to Henne's complaint not with an answer but with a motion to strike under RCW 4.24.525, the 2010 anti-SLAPP statute. Yakima's motion asserted that because Henne's claims were based on coworker complaints and the city's resulting internal investigations, a new, broader anti-SLAPP statute applied to those claims. In other words, Yakima claimed the protection of the anti-SLAPP suit law because it received controversial communications from others; Yakima made no communications of its own. The Supreme Court held that a governmental entity like Yakima cannot take advantage of the anti-SLAPP statutes at least where, as here, the challenged lawsuit is not based on the government's own communicative activity. The Court reversed the Court of Appeals' decision to dismiss as moot Yakima's appeal of the trial court's decision to deny Yakima's anti-SLAPP motion. Instead, the Court held that the case was ripe for review and reinstated the trial court's decision to deny Yakima's anti-SLAPP motion.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.