Dive brief:
- A federal jury awarded $5 million in damages to a California truck driver who alleged claims against construction materials company Cemex, including race and disability discrimination, according to a March 31 court filing.
- The plaintiff in Show v. Cemex he alleged that he suffered almost daily harassment from his co-workers and sued both Cemex and the individual defendants. In January, a federal judge granted summary judgment dismiss claims against individual defendants but allowed most of the plaintiff’s allegations against Cemex to proceed.
- The jury found that Cemex subjected the employee to a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act. It found for Cemex on a claim involving discrimination in the making and performance of contracts and did not award punitive damages against the company. In an email, a Cemex spokesperson told HR Dive that it was reviewing the next steps in the process.
Diving knowledge:
The plaintiff, a black man born with congenital auditory atresia, alleged an extensive list of claims in his fourth amended complaint, summarizing his treatment as “atrocious.”
The specific claims included multiple instances of slurs and insults made by co-workers that led him to file multiple internal HR complaints that Cemex allegedly refused to investigate. He later added a claim challenging his termination from Cemex as unlawful retaliation. The company attributed the termination, which occurred after the initial lawsuit was filed, to the plaintiff’s failure to disclose his disabilities and medical condition when he obtained federal medical certification to work as a driver.
The court’s decision in January determined that Cemex had a legitimate reason to fire the plaintiff, noting that the lack of a valid certification from the US Department of Transportation prevented him from driving.
However, the court allowed most of the plaintiff’s other claims to go forward, finding that the plaintiff met his burden of showing that a dispute of material fact existed with respect to his claims of discrimination and harassment. This included plaintiff’s claim that the company’s human resources department refused to investigate her alleged harassment.
Ultimately, the jury concluded that plaintiff had proven by a preponderance of the evidence that Cemex management knew or should have known about the harassment and failed to take prompt and effective remedial action to end it.
“We strongly oppose any discrimination or harassment in the workplace and are disappointed by the outcome of the trial,” a Cemex spokesperson told HR Dive.
The decision represents one of several recent jury verdicts awarding damages to plaintiffs who alleged hostile work environments. In February, for example, a Utah jury awarded more than $5 million to an HR professional who claimed to have been harassed, but whose internal complaint was dismissed by an HR executive.
A California jury slapped an even steeper fine on insurer Liberty Mutual last December. awarding $103 million to a former employee which alleged the existence of a hostile work environment and age discrimination, among other allegations.
Under federal employment laws, a hostile work environment exists when harassment occurs that is so severe or pervasive that a reasonable person would find it intimidating, hostile, or abusive, in accordance with guidelines published by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But the courts have already decided this before isolated incidents of harassment or discriminatory conduct don’t rise to the level of a hostile work environment.
