Jackson v. Quanex

Citation191 F.3d 647
Decision Date18 June 1999
Docket NumberNo. 98-1515,98-1515
Parties(6th Cir. 1999) Linda Jackson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Quanex Corporation, Defendant-Appellee. Argued:
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit; No. 95-70507--Avern Cohn, District Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Ada R. Montgomery, Oak Park, Michigan, for Appellant.

Debra M. McCulloch, Todd J. Shoudy, James F. Hermon, DYKEMA GOSSETT, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee.

Before: JONES, COLE, and CLAY, Circuit Judges.

AMENDED OPINION

CLAY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Linda Jackson appeals from the district court's judgment granting Defendant Quantex Corporation judgment as a matter of law pursuant to Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, in this case alleging racial harassment in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981 of the federal Civil Rights Act, as well as in violation of Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. For the reasons set forth below, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court.

I.
A.

At times relevant to the present case, Quanex operated a manufacturing plant in South Lyon, Michigan which manufactured seamless steel tubing. In 1987 and 1988, in accordance with an agreement it signed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") to increase the percentage of its African-American employees, Quanex hired approximately fifteen African-American employees, bringing the racial composition of the plant to eighteen African-American employees of a total population of 349 employees. Quanex hired Jackson, who is African American, for work at its South Lyon facility on March 2, 1987. During her employment with Quanex, Jackson began as a laborer but subsequently worked as a saw operator, furnace operator, and tub cleaner. In this action, Jackson alleges that from her first day with Quanex to her last, she was victimized by a racially hostile work environment resulting from numerous racist incidents which Jackson witnessed, experienced, and learned about from the small group of African Americans with whom she worked1.

1. Racist Slurs

On her first day of work at Quanex, Jackson overheard Dwight Miller and Jim Voltz, two supervisors, discussing their desire to fire minority employees and the idea of placing stars on their helmets for each minority fired. Jackson made no complaint to Quanex because she was a new hire and in a ninety-day probationary period. Darlene Solomon, another African American hired by Quanex in 1987, overheard supervisor Bob Beatty speaking in a derogatory manner about African- American people wearing bags on their heads, and frequently heard co-workers use racial slurs including the word "nigger" shortly after she began work at Quanex. Don McComb, also hired in 1987, heard Dwight Miller regularly refer to him and other African-American employees as "colored." (J.A. at 1090.) In 1988, Lloyd Clayton, another African American, learned from a co-worker that someone had called him a "stupid damn nigger," and overheard Dwight Miller and Bob Beatty saying that a particular African-American employee was not "like the rest of them" because he would "do as he is told." (J.A. at 579, 756.) Clayton later learned that when he replaced someone for a tub cleaner position, Dwight Miller commented that "no nigger was going to bump a white woman." (J.A. at 533-34.) Although Clayton reported the incident to Larry Samms, a general foreman, and to the Civil Rights Committee, Quanex undertook no investigation or action.

In 1989, Thomas Miller, an African-American employee who had repeatedly received racially offensive notes in his first year of employment with Quanex in 1981 and who regularly heard the term "nigger rigging" used there, heard his supervisor Leroy Shoaff constantly refer to African-American male employees as "boys" and to Caucasian male employees as "men," and endured numerous comments from Shoaff about how Shoaff "was breast-fed by a black woman" and "he had black in him." 2 (J.A. at 196, 197.) Although Miller told Shoaff he no longer wished to hear these comments, Shoaff continued to make them. And, although Miller reported Shoaff's conduct to Quanex's personnel department, Quanex took no action. In 1990, Bernard Crittenden, also African American, overheard racial jokes and heard co-worker Donnie Stone refer to another African-American employee as a "nigger." (J.A. at 402.) Crittenden was also told by a foreman, when he sought apprenticeship training as an electrician, that "they did not want blacks inside of the electric shop." (J.A. at 1828.) In 1991, co-worker Sue Knerr called Edward Copeland a "stupid street nigger." (J.A. at 625-26.) When Copeland complained to Shoaff, their supervisor, Shoaff asked Knerr to apologize but took no other action.

Jackson personally experienced racial slurs as well. In 1992, when Jackson was working as a tub cleaner, she had a Caucasian assistant named Pam Fouts for approximately three months. On August 12, 1992, Shoaff told Fouts, "you're working for a nigger now, boy did you get screwed." (J.A. at 2119.) Although Anita Wardlaw, a representative on the Civil Rights Committee, urged Fouts to file a complaint, Fouts resisted because "she was being called a lot of things she didn't like, such as she is a 'nigger lover' and 'you are stabbing us in the back,' things like that." (J.A. at 1311.) Ultimately, Wardlaw had Fouts sign a prepared statement describing the incident, and used the statement to file a written grievance with Quanex. When Quanex took Shoaff's statement, Shoaff admitted asking Fouts whether she was "working for a black girl." (J.A. at 1293.) On August 20, 1992, Quanex issued a statement to Shoaff and Fouts stating that it could not take action because there were no eyewitnesses to the incident, and reminding them that discriminatory conduct and bearing false witness against another employee violated company policy and rules. Wardlaw viewed this response as unsatisfactory, as it appeared Quanex "wanted to just brush it up under the table and just let it go." (J.A. at 1314-15.)

On January 22, 1993, Jackson attended a routine meeting with her supervisors in which Dwight Miller opened with, "we are up to our asses in nigger sludge" or a comment that sludge was "ass deep to a tall nigger." (J.A. at 1818, 1902, 1942.) When another employee objected, Dwight Miller retracted his statement and said instead, "up to our ass in Indian sludge." (J.A. at 1819.) Jackson reported this incident to Quanex management. In response, Quanex posted a memorandum of apology on a bulletin board in the plant, and gave Dwight Miller a reprimand, telling him that if he used similar slurs in the future, it would take disciplinary action against him immediately. Dennis Lasker, the plant manager, spoke with Dwight Miller and told him that Quanex would not tolerate his behavior "anymore." (J.A. at 671.) Jackson never received an apology from Dwight Miller.

2. Racist Graffiti

Jackson regularly saw graffiti in the women's rest room depicting a male and a female and accompanied by comments comparing the penis sizes of white and black males, and learned of graffiti in the men's rest room depicting lynchings accompanied by the phrase, "KKK is back." (J.A. at 158.) Although it bothered her, Jackson did not report the graffiti to management. For at least two years, Jackson, and several other African-American employees, also saw graffiti on a door at the west end of the plant that said, "Blacks out back." (J.A. at 489, 1972.) While Jackson did not work in the west end of the plant, she passed through the area regularly during the summertime so that she could eat her lunch on the benches located outside that area of the plant. Although the graffiti disturbed her, Jackson again did not complain to management because she felt it "was common practice to see things of this nature, or to have incidences occur that I felt were racist." (J.A. at 1974.)

While Jackson did not report to management the racial graffiti she witnessed, several other African-American employees at the plant did. Among them was Wardlaw, who wrote a memorandum to Quanex management informing them that degrading racial slurs and graffiti had been used directly and indirectly towards people of color and minorities in the plant. (J.A. at 1320.) In 1988, Thomas Miller witnessed graffiti in the seam grinding area that depicted the lynching of African-American men, and although he reported the matter to personnel, nothing was done about the incident. Bernard Crittenden witnessed graffiti in all of the men's bathrooms in the plant on twenty-five to thirty occasions, and observed that supervisory foreman regularly used the bathrooms and were aware of the graffiti. Although he reported the graffiti to management on two occasions, management, while promising to take care of the problem, did not do so immediately or did not do so at all. Crittenden also once found the locker of Thomas Miller defaced with racial graffiti. Frank Ferguson, who worked as a general foreman and superintendent of the hot mill and finish and packing divisions at Quanex from 1981 to 1991, and served as manager of Human Resources from 1991 and 1993, held responsibility for equal employment opportunity and affirmative action issues in the areas he supervised, and regularly saw racial graffiti in the plant. When Thomas Miller reported further racial graffiti, including the phrases "KKK is back" and "Tom Miller, Number One Nigger," Ferguson's response was "[y]ou know where we are and you know what's going on." (J.A. at 760-61.)

3. Conduct

Workers at Quanex frequently and freely engaged in offensive conduct that was directed at African-American employees. On December 8, 1987, a group of Caucasian workers confronted Foster Benson, an African American newly hired by Quanex in 1987, accusing him of stealing...

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