E.E.O.C. v. Sunbelt Rentals, Inc.

• Decision Date: 31 March 2008
• Docket Number: No. 07-1123.,07-1123.
• Citation: 521 F.3d 306
• Parties: EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SUNBELT RENTALS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

521 F.3d 306

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SUNBELT RENTALS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 07-1123.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: January 30, 2008.

Decided: March 31, 2008.

ARGUED: Daniel Travis Vail, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Patricia J. Hill, Smith, Gambrell & Russell, L.L.P., Jacksonville, Florida, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Ronald S. Cooper, General, Carolyn L. Wheeler, Acting Associate General, Lorraine C. Davis, Assistant General, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Colin A. Thakkar, Smith, Gambrell & Russell, L.L.P., Jacksonville, Florida, for Appellee.

Before WILKINSON and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and Patrick Michael DUFFY, United States District Judge for the District of South Carolina, sitting by designation.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge GREGORY and Judge DUFFY joined.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

This case arises from a Title VII action brought by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of Clinton Ingram, a Muslim American, against Sunbelt Rentals, Inc. The EEOC alleges that Ingram, while working at Sunbelt, was subjected to a religiously hostile work environment in violation of Title VII. The district court granted summary judgment for Sunbelt and dismissed the claim.

Title VII extends the promise that no one should be subject to a discriminatorily hostile work environment. In the wake of September 11th, some Muslim Americans, completely innocent of any wrongdoing, became targets of gross misapprehensions and overbroad assumptions about their religious beliefs. But the event that shook the foundations of our buildings did not shake the premise of our founding — that here, in America, there is no heretical faith. Because the evidence, if proven, indicates that Ingram suffered severe and pervasive religious harassment in violation of Title VII, we reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment and remand with directions that this case proceed to trial.

I.

A.

Sunbelt is a company that rents and sells construction equipment. In October 2001, a month after the September 11th attacks, it hired Ingram to work at its Gaithersburg, Maryland store. After initially working as a truck driver, Ingram was later promoted to the position of rental manager, a position he held until his termination in February 2003. As a rental manager, Ingram primarily worked at a rental counter located inside the store's showroom and was responsible for assisting customers with equipment rentals.

Ingram worked in close quarters with several other Sunbelt employees. In addition to Ingram, there were three other rental managers at the Gaithersburg location: David Gray, John "Hank" Parater, and Barry Fortna. Gray and Parater had work stations on either side of Ingram at the office's rental counter, and Fortna, the "lead rental manager," worked at a desk behind the counter.

In addition to his fellow rental managers, Ingram frequently interacted with Mike Warner, the store's shop foreman, and Steve Riddlemoser, the overall manager of the Gaithersburg office. When Riddlemoser was not in the office, Warner served as the "acting manager." If both Riddlemoser and Warner were absent, then Fortna was left in charge. The regional manager for the Gaithersburg location was Eddie Dempster.

Prior to joining Sunbelt, Ingram, who is an African American, converted to Islam while serving in the United States Army. It is undisputed that Sunbelt, as well as Ingram's coworkers, knew Ingram was a Muslim. In fact, Sunbelt permitted Ingram to use a private, upstairs room for short prayer sessions that were required by Ingram's faith. In addition, Sunbelt allowed Ingram to attend a weekly congregational prayer session that took place from 1:00-1:45 p.m. on Friday afternoons. Ingram also observed tenets of his faith at the workplace by keeping a beard and wearing a kufi, a traditional headgear worn by Muslim men. Notably, Ingram was the only Muslim employee at the Gaithersburg office.

During his time at Sunbelt, Ingram claims he was subjected to a hostile work environment on the basis of his religion. According to Ingram, the abusive environment was marked by a steady stream of demeaning comments and degrading actions directed against him by his coworkers — conduct that went unaddressed and unpunished by Sunbelt supervisors.

For instance, coworkers used religiously-charged epithets and often called Ingram names such as "Taliban" and "towel head." In addition, fellow employees frequently made fun of Ingram's appearance, challenged his allegiance to the United States, suggested he was a terrorist, and made comments associating all Muslims with senseless violence. Sometimes Ingram's supervisors personally participated in the harassment. Sunbelt responds, in turn, that Ingram also used profane and derogatory language in the workplace.

Additionally, Ingram was the victim of several religiously charged incidents. For instance, on one occasion, Gray held a metal detector to Ingram's head and, after the detector did not go off, called Ingram a "fake ass Muslim want-to-be turbine wearing ass." In a separate incident, Gray showed Ingram a stapler and said that "if anyone upsets you pretend this stapler is a model airplane [and] just toss it in the air, just repeatedly catch it, [and] don't say anything." Ingram understood this to be a reference to the September 11 attacks and another attempt by Gray to equate Ingram with terrorists. Final, a cartoon was posted in the store's dispatch area depicting persons "dressed in Islamic or Muslim attire" as suicide bombers. Taking offense, Ingram complained about the cartoon to the dispatcher and eventually tore it down.

In addition to these explicitly religious incidents, Ingram suffered from other forms of harassment. For example, his timecard, which was used to punch time in and out, was frequently hidden, especially on Fridays when he went to congregational prayer. Likewise, coworkers constantly unplugged his computer equipment and, on one occasion, defaced his business card by writing "dumb ass" over his name.

After nearly every incident of harassment, Ingram verbally complained to Riddlemoser, and sometimes Dempster and Warner as well. Indeed, according to Gray, "[w]henever anything that [Ingram] believed to be inappropriate was said or done to him, he immediately took his complaint to Steve [Riddlemoser]." However, these complaints proved futile, and the religious harassment persisted.

On Friday, November 15, 2002, after discovering his timecard was missing, Ingram confronted Warner, who he believed was responsible for the hidden timecard. After a heated exchange, Ingram was sent home for the day and told that Riddlemoser, who was absent, would deal with the issue when he returned the following Monday.

Later that day, Ingram contacted Sunbelt's Human Resources Department and spoke with HR Specialist Stephanie Wilson. During two phone conversations with Wilson, Ingram expressed his frustration about the ongoing harassment and explained that he believed it was because of his religion. Wilson told Ingram to fax her a written complaint detailing some specific incidents of the alleged harassment.

After receiving Ingram's written complaint, Wilson emailed Riddlemoser to inform him of the situation. She outlined Ingram's complaint of harassment, noting that Ingram alleged that someone was "1) leaving rude written messages (profanity) on his paperwork, 2) unplugging his monitor, 3) misplacing his timecard, [and] 4) voicing physical threats against him to other employees, etc. He believes that this harassment is based on his religion ( [M]uslim). He tells me that he has voiced his concerns to you on several occasions and nothing has been done." Wilson also emphasized that these were serious allegations and that discrimination on the basis of religion could not be tolerated under Sunbelt's personnel policies.^*

Riddlemoser forwarded the email to Dempster, and both informed Wilson they would look into the matter. The following week Riddlemoser talked with Ingram and his coworkers about the issues alleged in Ingram's written complaint. After investigating the various incidents, Riddlemoser refused to take any disciplinary action because of what he believed to be insufficient evidence about who was responsible for the acts alleged. However, Riddlemoser did tell Ingram's coworkers to avoid making comments about Ingram or Muslims in general.

On November 19, 2002, Riddlemoser reported to Wilson that he had determined the basis of the complaints and that "none of these allegations are religious based." Rather, "they are personal. Clinton's performance and personality are the only cause for the problems. We've allowed him to leave every Friday for an hour to pray due to his religion so I believe we've been very accommodating to him." When asked whether he had spoken to Ingram about these supposed "performance issues," Riddlemoser informed Wilson that he talked with Ingram about his manner and how he should not "take things so personal." Riddlemoser also told Ingram that so long as Ingram "maintains a positive attitude," then the issues with "Sunbelt would roll right off his shoulder and [he] could leave work with the same positive attitude."

Dempster also met with Ingram to discuss the incidents in the written complaint. According to Ingram, Dempster "prejudg[ed] the situation" and did not even "ask [Ingram] what happened." Rather, Dempster simply informed Ingram that the coworkers alleged to be responsible for the harassment were "denying everything."

After a short period of relative improvement, the religious harassment and pranks "just basically started up again." For instance, Gray continued to harass Ingram about his appearance and his faith. After...