Talk is (not) cheap! Racial remark leads to hefty judgment against MS firm

It’s 2020, folks—a year that will always be associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. But for some, the year also represents a time of missed opportunity given the racial divide that’s still present in our country. Employment lawyers hear the stories almost daily, and employers must be reminded that not everyone has moved beyond our nation’s past. But if a business owner turns a “blind eye,” what are the repercussions? A Mississippi employer recently found out.

Facts

Commercial Furniture Installation, Inc. (CFI), is an office furniture installation company in the Jackson, Mississippi, area. Jackie Armagost and John Haselhorst were 50/50 partners in CFI.

Aisha T. Crump, an African-American woman, worked for CFI over the course of several different periods from December 2015 to September 2018. On April 18, 2018, Armagost called Crump and terminated her without explanation. While she was in her office packing up her things, she overheard Haselhorst tell Armagost that another CFI employee, Brenda Hollis, did not want Crump’s “black ass working here.”

Thereafter, Crump filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). After Armagost learned of the filing, he asked Crump to drop the EEOC claim in return for reinstatement. She agreed and started back the following day but was relegated to a workstation in an isolated area at the bottom of a hot warehouse, which had no running water or bathroom.