United States Tenth Circuit

In a Title VII and 42 U.S.C. section 1981 action alleging that defendant-railroad maintained a racially hostile work environment, summary judgment for the railroad is reversed and remanded where: 1) a reasonable jury could find that a co-worker's hanging of a life-size noose, which occurred within the limitations period, stemmed from racial animus; 2) various other discriminatory acts at issue outside the limitations period were sufficiently related to constitute "a single, actionable hostile work environment"; 3) a reasonable jury could find that the hostile environment was sufficiently severe; 4) there was a triable issue as to whether a recurrence of racist graffiti was the sort of harassment that in the exercise of reasonable care should have been discovered by management-level employees, and as to the adequacy of the railroad's remedial response; 5) plaintiff was not barred from raising claims included in a previous complaint for which he received a right-to-sue letter; and 6) summary judgment on the section 1981 claim was erroneous for the same reasons, as the National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101 (2002), rule applies to section 1981 hostile environment claims.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/01/2008
• Published 04/02/2008

Judges

• HENRY, Chief Judge., Before HENRY, Chief Judge, BALDOCK, Circuit Judge, and MARTEN, District Judge.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Erika Birch, Strindberg Scholnick & Chamness, LLC, Salt Lake City, UT (Laura I. Scholnick, with her on the briefs), for Plaintiff-Appellant., Elizabeth E. Theran, Attorney (James L. Lee, Deputy General Counsel, Lorraine C. Davis, Acting Associate General Counsel, and Vincent J. Blackwood, Assistant General Counsel, with her on the brief) Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, D.C., appeared for Amicus Curiae Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in support of Plaintiff-Appellant., Stephanie Struble, Lohf Shaiman Jacobs Hyman & Feiger PC, Denver, CO, Joan M. Bechtold, Law Office of Joan M. Bechtold, LLC, Denver, CO, and Terisa E. Chaw, National Employment Lawyers Association, San Francisco, CA, filed a brief for Amicus Curiae National Employment Lawyers Association, in support of Plaintiff-Appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Janet Hugie Smith, Ray Quinney & Nebeker P.C., Salt Lake City, UT (Robert O. Rice and Frederick R. Thaler, with her on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees.