EQUAL EMPLOYMENT, ETC. v. Murphy Motor Freight

• Decision Date: 02 April 1980
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 3-76-191.
• Citation: 488 F. Supp. 381
• Parties: EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff, and Ray Wells, Intervenor, v. MURPHY MOTOR FREIGHT LINES, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota

488 F. Supp. 381

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff and Ray Wells, Intervenor, v. MURPHY MOTOR FREIGHT LINES, INC., Defendant.

Civ. No. 3-76-191.

United States District Court, D. Minnesota, Third Division.

April 2, 1980.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Roger Duncan, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Indianapolis, Ind., for plaintiff.

Gerald M. Singer, Meshbesher, Singer & Spence, Ltd., Minneapolis, Minn., for intervenor.

David R. Hols and Alice O'Brien Berquist, Felhaber, Larson, Fenlon & Vogt, P. A., St. Paul, Minn., for defendant.

FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND ORDER FOR JUDGMENT

MacLAUGHLIN, District Judge.

This is an action for injunctive relief, backpay, and attorney's fees brought by plaintiff, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (hereinafter "EEOC") and intervenor Ray Wells, under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. (hereinafter "Title VII"). Plaintiff and intervenor contend that defendant Murphy Motor Freight Lines, Inc. (hereinafter "Murphy") has systematically discriminated against and harassed minority employees in contravention of Title VII. The Court, having considered all of the evidence presented at trial and the arguments of counsel, hereby makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a). The Court has jurisdiction over the subject matter of this dispute under 28 U.S.C. §§ 451, 1343 and 1345.

The Parties

Plaintiff Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an administrative agency of the United States government charged with the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. Intervenor Ray L. Wells is a black male citizen of the State of Minnesota. Defendant Murphy Motor Freight Lines, Inc. is a Minnesota corporation with its principal office and place of business in Roseville, Minnesota, where it is engaged in the motor freight business. At all times relevant to this action, defendant Murphy employed 25 or more persons.

Procedural Background

On August 5, 1974, Ray Wells made a written amended charge of discrimination (TMK2-0211) naming as respondents Murphy and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local No. 120. The EEOC deferred Wells' amended charge to the State of Minnesota Department of Human Rights pursuant to § 705(b) of Title VII and the Department waived jurisdiction of the charge on August 6, 1974. Wells' amended charge was filed with the EEOC on August 6, 1974, and was timely filed within 180 days of the alleged unlawful practices. The charge alleged that Wells had been discriminated against because of his race.

On December 10, 1974, after the EEOC investigated the charge, Wesley N. Harry, District Director of the EEOC, issued with respect to Wells' charge a Letter of Determination, bearing the case number YMK5-282, which was served upon Murphy. Following the Determination, conciliation efforts were made. These attempts at conciliation failed and on February 24, 1976, defendant Murphy was notified to that effect. Murphy failed to request that attempts at conciliation be reopened following its receipt of the District Director's notification of conciliation failure.

On June 1, 1976, the EEOC filed this suit. Wells was granted leave to proceed as intervening plaintiff on August 3, 1978.

Wells' Employment

Intervenor Wells was employed by defendant Murphy as a dockman at its Roseville, Minnesota, terminal from May of 1967 until his discharge in July of 1974. Wells claims that Murphy has violated Title VII in two ways: 1) by failing to provide for him a work environment free of racial hostility, intimidation, and harassment; 2) by discharging him while similarly situated white employees were not discharged. The Court agrees with Wells' first claim and rejects the second claim. The Court also is persuaded that the EEOC's claim that Murphy has violated Title VII is correct.

1. Oppressive working conditions

42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1) provides that an employer may not "discriminate against any individual with respect to . . . terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race . . .." The Court is convinced that racial harassment occurred at Murphy which violated Title VII.

Racial harassment has for some time been recognized as a violation of Title VII. The EEOC has ruled that an employer is responsible for maintaining a "working environment free of racial intimidation," and that the requirement includes "positive action where positive action is necessary to redress or eliminate employee intimidation." EEOC Dec. 72-0779, 4 FEP Cases 317 (1971); EEOC Dec. 72-1561, 4 FEP Cases 852 (1972), noted in B. Schlei & P. Grossman, Employment Discrimination Law 237 (1976). Title VII prohibits "the practice of creating a working environment heavily charged with ethnic or racial discrimination." Rogers v. EEOC, 454 F.2d 234, 238 (5th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 957, 92 S.Ct. 2058, 32 L.Ed.2d 343 (1972).

An analysis of case law dealing with instances of racial harassment has revealed two primary conditions for a finding that Title VII has been violated.

First, more than a few isolated incidents of harassment must have occurred. Racial comments that are merely part of casual conversation, Cariddi v. Kansas City Chiefs Football Club, Inc., 568 F.2d 87, 88 (8th Cir. 1977), are accidental, or are sporadic do not trigger Title VII's sanctions. Winfrey v. Metropolitan Utilities Dist., 467 F.Supp. 56, 60 (D.Neb.1979); Friend v. Leidinger, 446 F.Supp. 361, 382-83 (E.D.Va. 1977); Croker v. Boeing Co. (Vertol Div.), 437 F.Supp. 1138, 1191 (E.D.Pa.1977); Fekete v. U. S. Steel Corp., 353 F.Supp. 1177, 1186 (W.D.Pa.1973).

The testimony at trial conclusively proved that Wells was subjected to vicious, frequent, and reprehensible instances of racial harassment, which occurred in several guises.

Freight at Murphy is manually unloaded by workers on the loading dock and placed on carts. The carts move around a track; the freight is thereby conveyed to other parts of the building. They make a complete revolution through the dock every eight minutes. On each cart is a blackboard approximately one foot square, on which is written the destination of the freight. The carts were the vehicles for slurs against blacks in general and Wells in particular. John Buhl, one of the loading dock employees, testified that the chalkboards contained such epithets as "Ray Wells is a nigger," "The only good nigger is a dead nigger," "Ray Wells is a mother," "Send all blacks back to Africa," and "Niggers are a living example that the Indians screwed buffalo." The example concerning buffalo at times referred specifically to Ray Wells. Other employees substantiated these allegations. Former employee Peter Sarafolean saw a cart sign indicating that "Ray Wells is a nigger." Steven Mudge, a supervisor, stated that he saw two signs referring to "niggers." In one instance, he saw a wooden cross identified with the Ku Klux Klan on a cart. Another supervisor, Patrick White, noted that a sign referred to the Klan. The same or a similar incident was confirmed by Daniel Johnson, another supervisor, who testified that he saw one cart carrying a cross with the words "f___ nigger." Wells himself observed one sign suggesting that Archie Bunker should be elected President because "he would know how to handle niggers."

Sentiments similar to those appearing on carts were found on and inside truck trailers near the loading dock. Supervisor Mudge observed signs on the trucks, one of which said "Ray Wells sucks." Lawrence Hicks, Jr., a black former employee, noticed that the phrase "Ray Wells is a nigger" was inscribed inside trailers.

The atmosphere of racial hostility at Murphy was especially strong in the company lunchroom. Wells testified that

one table became the Ray Wells table and no one ate there but Ray Wells. On this table, as we took our 10-minute breaks and lunch hours, licorice dolls, candy licorice dolls were placed on the table with little notes about your mother, nigger and things of this nature, comments made on pieces of paper here and there. At one point I was somewhere like in the middle or three-fourths of the cafeteria and one guy on this side of the room would holler to a guy on this side of the room. He would say, "What are you reading?" The guy would say, "I am reading a book about a black guy named Sambo. He's got a pancake." Things of that nature.

While there is conflicting testimony as to the cause, Wells began to eat lunch in a separate room (the so-called "warm room") on the loading dock. When Wells and Lawrence Hicks began to eat in the warm room, words were scratched into or written on the door specifying that the area was for "niggers only" or that it was a "nigger lunchroom." Apparently the hostility was orchestrated by a clique of four or five employees, who sat at their own table in the lunchroom. Known as the "Swamp Rats," they characteristically referred to blacks, both privately and in front of Wells, as "niggers." The de facto leader of the group informed a supervisor that he did not want to work near Wells.

Anti-black sentiments were expressed in other ways as well. The company's bulletin board was the situs of an article or articles derogatory of black persons. Racially oriented graffiti was found in the restrooms and on a wall near the entrance to the loading dock. The tires of Wells' car were slashed and a foul-smelling substance was put in his shoes.

The record as a whole shows that the racial harassment that Wells experienced was not isolated, casual, accidental, or sporadic. Rather, the incidents were a "concerted pattern of harassment," Fekete v. U. S. Steel Corp., 353 F.Supp. 1177, 1186 (W.D. Pa.1973), and were "so excessive and opprobrious as to constitute an unlawful employment practice under Title VII." Cariddi v. Kansas City Chiefs Football Club, Inc., 568 F.2d 87, 88 (8th Cir. 1977).

Second, plaintiff must show that...