The federal appeals court in Atlanta has backed off a controversial ruling issued a year ago that threw out a race discrimination verdict in favor of an African-American poultry worker who had been called "boy" by his white supervisor at a Tyson Foods plant.
On Friday, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a new opinion in the case, approving a $364,049 award of damages for John Hithon, a black shift supervisor at a chicken processing plant in Gadsden, Ala. He filed suit after being passed over for promotion in favor of white employees.
The earlier opinion threw out the jury's verdict and ordered the case be dismissed in Tyson's favor. It had been condemned by 11 civil rights pioneers, who filed a legal brief asking the court to reconsider. Their filing reminded the court that whites called black men "boys" during slavery and segregation "to reinforce their racially subordinate status."
Among those signing onto the brief, written by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, were Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor who was executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and former SCLC officials Dorothy Cotton, the Rev. Joseph Lowery and the Rev. C.T. Vivian.
"This corrects a terrible injustice," said Stephen Bright, senior counsel of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and who has followed the case. "The court has at long last recognized how offensive it is to refer to adult black men as ‘boy.'"
Tyson Foods spokesman Gary Mickelson said the company had not yet reviewed the ruling, but he noted the company has "a corporate policy and training program in place to help us provide a work environment free of unlawful harassment and discrimination."
Hithon's lawyer, Alicia Haynes, could not be reached for comment.
At Hithon's trial, witnesses testified that Tom Hatley, who is white and was the manager at the Gadsden plant, had called black employee Anthony Ash "boy" in the cafeteria during a lunch break. "Boy, you better get going," Hatley said, Ash testified. Ash said he was offended by the remark.
Hithon also testified that Hatley once said, in a condescending tone, "Hey, boy," to him as he was leaving a conference room.
A year ago, the 11th Circuit said Hatley's alleged use of the word "boy" was not evidence of racial bias. The issue, the court said, was not what was in Hithon's and Ash's minds when they heard the word "but what was in Hatley's mind when he used it."
Friday's decision, written by Judge Ed Carnes, said Hatley's use of the word "boy" was not enough by itself to convince the jury of racial discrimination. But all of the evidence of discrimination, including the use of the word "boy," was enough to support the verdict. Carnes noted that Hatley used the word in "a racially demeaning way" to Hithon and Ash shortly before the hiring decisions were made.
The decision did, however, grant Tyson a partial victory, upholding the trial judge's decision to throw out the jury's award of $1 million in punitive damages for Hithon.
Such an award, Carnes wrote, would be contrary to a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said companies cannot be held liable for punitive damages when a manager makes discriminatory decisions contrary to the company’s good faith efforts to comply with the law. “Supreme Court precedent,” Carnes added, “is not like the ash on a cigarette, to be flicked off whenever convenient."
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