Employer Liable For Single Racial Slur

The Massachusetts Appeals Court has upheld the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination’s decision to award a former worker $10,000 in emotional distress damages plus $17,836 in fees and costs because his white male supervisor called him a “fg nigger” on one occasion during a dispute with the employee.

The court said that a supervisor who called a black subordinate that name engaged in conduct so powerfully offensive that the MCAD can base liability on a single instance. That term inflicts cruel injury by its very utterance. It is degrading, it is humiliating, and it is freighted with a long and shameful history of humiliation, the ugly effects of which continue to haunt us all, the Court said. The words have no legitimate place in the working environment indeed, they have no legitimate placeand there is no conceivable justification for their use by a workplace supervisor, according to the Court.

The $17,836 award was upheld even though in 2006 the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled emotional distress awards must be supported by substantial evidence of emotional suffering and a connection between the emotional distress and the unlawful act. The fact that the employee testified he was “stunned” by the language and was upset and hurt provided the evidence needed for the damages.