Crawford v. Roadway Exp., Inc.

• Decision Date: 26 February 1980
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 78-1311.
• Citation: 485 F. Supp. 914
• Parties: Kenneth L. CRAWFORD v. ROADWAY EXPRESS, INC.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Louisiana

485 F. Supp. 914

Kenneth L. CRAWFORD v. ROADWAY EXPRESS, INC.

Civ. A. No. 78-1311.

United States District Court, W. D. Louisiana, Shreveport Division.

February 26, 1980.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Henry C. Walker, IV, Shreveport, La., Timothy R. Fischer (formerly with H. Walker), Northwest Louisiana Legal Services, Inc., Shreveport, La., George M. Strickler, Jr., New Orleans, La., for plaintiff.

Walter F. Clawson, Schober, Clawson & Brabham, Shreveport, La., John N. Childs, Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs Co., L. P. A., Akron, Ohio, for defendant.

OPINION

STAGG, District Judge.

On September 5, 1979, at the close of a five-day trial, this court ruled that defendant Roadway Express Company (Roadway) violated the civil rights of plaintiff Kenny L. Crawford by retaliating against him for participating in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) hearing in Dallas. The Dallas hearing had been called to investigate charges of racial discrimination at Roadway's Shreveport terminal, and Crawford, a white employee, gave testimony at the hearing that tended to support the charges. Upon Crawford's return to Shreveport, he was subjected to persistent harassment by Roadway management, one of whom stated that "Kenny's just another nigger."

Having found liability, the court reserved ruling on the issue of damages to give the parties an opportunity to settle that issue. No settlement has been reached, so the court must now render an appropriate award. First, however, it would be helpful to summarize and supplement the court's findings of fact and conclusions of law.¹

I. FINDINGS OF FACT

Plaintiff Kenny L. Crawford was originally hired as a casual worker at Roadway's Dallas Terminal, and became a full-time employee on November 4, 1968. In September of 1973, Crawford began working at the Shreveport Terminal, and is still employed there.² Throughout his employment in Dallas, and until March of 1977 in Shreveport, Crawford worked as a "Pickup and Delivery", or "P & D" truck driver.

On March 1, 1977, Crawford and several other Roadway employees went to Dallas to give testimony to the EEOC after charges of discrimination were filed by several black employees. When asked why he went to testify, Crawford stated that he had seen numerous examples of racial discrimination at the terminal and wanted to help remedy the situation. For example, several witnesses referred to a common saying among Roadway management that epitomized their general attitude: "Niggers and rosebushes go together." This statement refers to the Roadway supervisors' then-current practice of disproportionately assigning blacks to load and unload Tyler rose crates, a difficult, dirty job.³

Shortly after returning to Shreveport from the EEOC hearing, Crawford was confronted by John Davis, a Roadway Terminal Operations Manager (TOM), who told him that those who went to Dallas would be fired. Crawford was also told at various times by TOM's Poston and Gardner, and Terminal Manager Charles Cates, that any minor mistake would cost him his job. These "greetings" set the stage for a persistent course of harassment that culminated in Crawford's hospitalization and treatment for irritable bowel syndrome and extreme nervousness, which Crawford's doctors established was caused by his response to his volatile work situation.⁴

Each of Roadway's witnesses, all of whom were management personnel, denied that any such statements were ever made to Crawford or to the other employees who testified in Dallas. Further, the management witnesses denied even knowing who went to the Dallas hearing until a company attorney quizzed them about it in April or later. However, several witnesses stated that there were "rumors" around the dock shortly after the EEOC hearing. The Roadway witnesses' uniform, almost identical, answers regarding this issue strains the credulity of a trial judge. The Roadway terminal is a community in microcosm where nearly everyone hears what is happening and discusses it. The court believes the plaintiff's witnesses who testified that the trip to Dallas and the participants were well known. The court finds that Roadway management knew the identity of the Dallas witnesses almost immediately and that Roadway personnel made the threatening comments attributed to them by Crawford's witnesses.

About one week after the Dallas hearing, Crawford exercised his seniority privileges by switching job functions from "P & D" driver to "hostler". A hostler is a dock employee who, among other duties, backs trucks up to the dock for loading after checking the truck to make sure it is load-worthy. Crawford was again "greeted" to his new job on the dock by Bill Johnson, another TOM, who told Crawford to "get your goddamn ass off my dock". Around this time, Charles Cates told Crawford, "I'm not gonna have to fire you, you're gonna fire yourself."

Beginning with his job on the dock as a hostler, and continuing through his later jobs as dock checker and fork lift driver, Crawford was subjected to extensive on-the-job harassment. Crawford's witnesses gave many examples of such treatment, all of which were denied by Roadway witnesses. The court resolves this credibility issue against Roadway, and cites the following instances as a few examples of Roadway's retaliatory actions:

1. The record shows that while Roadway management was harassing Crawford on the dock, it was also "building a file" on him through oppressive surveillance which led inevitably to many questionable warning letters⁵ and innumerable verbal warnings. It is probably true, as Roadway contends, that Crawford is not an exemplary employee. His work record reveals a relatively large number of write-ups concerning various deficiencies in his work patterns even before his testimony in Dallas. However, the number of these write-ups and the considerable detail written in them shows a marked change after the Dallas EEOC hearing.

In examining Crawford's file, identified as Defendant's Exhibit No. D-13, the court finds that from the beginning of 1976 until May of 1977, Crawford received only one warning letter. Beginning in May of 1977, however, just two months after Crawford's return from Dallas and after persistent harassment on the dock, Crawford received nine warning letters and two suspensions in less than eleven months. In addition to the warning letters, Crawford's work file contains a number of minute-by-minute surveillance reports made by Roadway supervisors, whereas no such reports appear in the file for any time prior to Crawford's appearance in Dallas. Such intensive surveillance could be expected to reveal faults in Crawford's work performance, so that some of the warnings given Crawford were probably justified. The surveillance itself, however, was unjustified, and is found to have been retaliatory.

2. Crawford and several other witnesses established that Crawford was often harassed in conjunction with restroom breaks. On more than one occasion, Crawford was told he could not go to the restroom or to get a drink of water on company time. Phillip Roos, a Roadway supervisor, once followed Crawford into the restroom, looked under the door of a stall and actually ordered Crawford off the toilet. Roadway witnesses claimed that restroom breaks are often abused by lazy workers, who must be ordered back to work. Nevertheless, there is a difference between management personnel checking the restrooms occasionally to see if anyone is openly wasting time, and invading the privacy of the stalls. The latter activity goes beyond supervision, and is found in this case to constitute harassment.

3. The evidence shows that on at least one occasion Crawford was not told of an emergency phone call from his wife. Mrs. Crawford called to inform Crawford that their daughter had run away from home or was missing, but Roadway officials did not call Crawford to the phone. Roadway witnesses attempted to explain away this incident by claiming that an error was made and that Crawford received apologies. This explanation, however, is not found to be credible considering the other treatment accorded Crawford at the time.

4. One of the loading doors at the dock, the 38 door, is situated directly opposite the desk of the breakout foreman. Both sides testified that problem employees are sometimes given work assignments at this door so the foreman can keep an eye on them. Crawford, however, was placed at the door for two to three months consecutively. Though Roadway witnesses alleged that Crawford was a poor employee who was in need of constant supervision, there is no evidence that any other problem employee was placed in such a situation for that length of time. Notably, Crawford was never placed under such extended supervision before giving testimony in Dallas. The length of this supervision is found to be out of the ordinary and is attributed to a spirit of retaliation.

5. At one point while Crawford was working as a fork lift driver, he was denied access to a fork lift and ordered to make a pre-dawn city delivery to Western Electric. Crawford cites this as another example of harassment in light of his seniority and the fact that there were junior men on the fork lifts at that time who could have made the delivery. Upon making these objections and refusing to make the delivery, Crawford was disciplined. Roadway denied that the junior men were qualified to make the delivery, and contended that by sending Crawford they would have been able to break only one job classification rather than two. However, Mike Jackson testified that at the time of this incident, he, Jackson, was qualified to drive into the city and was an unassigned employee. Thus, by sending Jackson, whose job as an unassigned worker was to fill in wherever needed, Roadway could have avoided breaking any job classifications and could have respected Crawford's seniority privileges. Under the circumstances, Roadway's actions are found...