Texas court: FedEx delivers timely win in Section 1981 lawsuit

A creative FedEx policy gets the credit in beating back a $366,160,000 jury verdict in a race discrimination case arising in Houston. Read on for news you can use!

Section 1981 vs. Title VII

Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibits race/ethnic discrimination, as does Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But that’s the end of the similarities. Section 1981 doesn’t require employees to file an unlawful discrimination charge, uses a four-year statute of limitations, and allows for the possibility of uncapped compensatory and punitive damages.

By contrast, Title VII requires employees to exhaust their administrative remedies, uses a 300-day limitations period, and caps compensatory and punitive damages at $300,000. For some inexplicable reason, the lawyers representing Jennifer Harris didn’t sue under Title VII for race discrimination, like most employees’ lawyers do. Here’s where our story begins.

FedEx career derails, lawsuit commences