Racial Hostile Environment Claim Sent to Jury
A jury must decide whether a supervisor’s racial insults and other behavior toward a Hispanic employee constituted a hostile work environment, the Tenth Circuit rules, remanding a lower court summary judgment decision back for trial. The employee worked in a service center, where evidence suggested that profanity and ethnic jokes were the “norm.” The Court said that if that was all the employee had complained about, it might have agreed that the environment was just a “rough-and-tumble” one. However, evidence also showed racially derogatory treatment “well beyond being sworn at and joked with,” the ruling noted. Herrera v. Lufkin Industries, Inc.


