A corporate controller’s claim that he was terminated in retaliation for a complaint to the Vice President for Human Resources regarding racist comments allegedly made by the Vice President of Operations can move forward on his suit, a divided Sixth Circuit says.

Although the corporate controller did not specify the racist comments to VP of HR, he did state “something to her about [the VP of Operations’] continued…choice to say inappropriate or derogatory things about other races,” which the Court majority says “can be construed as a complaint about a hostile work environment caused by racial and national origin discrimination. When assessing hostile environment claims, we have emphasized that ‘the issue is not whether each incident of harassment standing alone is sufficient to sustain the cause of action in a hostile environment case, but whether—taken together—the reported incidents make out such a case.’”

“We have repeatedly held that complaints to human resources personnel regarding potential violations of Title VII constitute protected activity for purposes of establishing a prima facie case of retaliation,” the Court majority says. Trujillo v. Henniges Automotive Sealing Systems