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Single racial epithet can establish
a hostile work
environment claim |
Woods v. Cantrell
(5th Cir 03/24/2022)
http://case.lawmemo.com/5/woods.pdf
Sent to Custom Alerts™
subscribers on 03/27/2022
Anthony Woods filed suit against
his former employer, alleging that he was subjected to a hostile
work environment in violation of Title VII.
He claimed
that in the presence of other employees, his supervisor, a person
of Hispanic descent, directly called him a "Lazy Monkey A__
N____."
The district court dismissed Woods’s hostile work
environment claim because "a single utterance of a racial epithet,
despicable as it is, cannot support a hostile work environment
claim."
The 5th Circuit reversed in a 3 1/2 page opinion.
The 5th Circuit held that Woods's court complaint states an
actionable claim of hostile work environment.
The court
said, "As other circuits have recognized, '[p]erhaps no single act
can more quickly 'alter the conditions of employment and create an
abusive working environment than the use of an unambiguously
racial epithet such as [the N-word] by a supervisor in the
presence of his subordinates.'"
The court also said,
"Furthermore, if supported with adequate proof, Woods could be
entitled to emotional and other damages that have been alleged."
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