Butler v. Ala. DOT
536 F.3d 1209 (11th Cir. 2008)
An African-American employee claimed that she was subjected to adverse employment actions while she worked for the Alabama Department of Transportation because she complained about racial comments a white employee made after the white employee was involved in an automobile accident with an African-American driver. Although the district court dismissed several claims the employee made in her complaint, and one of three individuals she sued, it denied the remaining defendants' motion for judgment as a matter of law on the employee's claims alleging that they violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and 42 U.S.C.S. § 1981, and entered judgment confirming a jury's decision in favor of the employee. The court of appeals found that the district court erred. The racially insensitive comments the white employee made did not show that the African-American employee was subjected to a hostile work environment, and there was no evidence showing that the employee was subjected to an adverse employment action because she complained about those comments. The court explained that not every uncalled for, ugly, racist statement by a coworker does not qualify as an unlawful employment practice and explained that it is objectively unreasonable to believe that the use of racially discriminatory language on one occasion by one coworker away from the workplace is enough to permeate the workplace with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult and to alter the conditions of a victim's employment and create an abusive working environment.