Jon Ostendorff • published February 11, 2009 3:52 pm
Asheville – A federal jury awarded $50,000 to an African-American construction worker who says his co-workers hurled racial epitaphs at him, shot nails at him and even tried to lynch him on a job site. Michael A. Kitchen, 29, of Brevard, won his case Feb. 2.
The abuse started February 2004 when he was hired as a worker for Pisgah Forest-based Farrell Log Homes and lasted until he ran from a job site that summer after employees put a rope around his neck and threatened to hang him, his attorney said on Wednesday.
The case is the most shocking violation Attorney Philip J. Roth of Asheville says he has seen in 18 years of practicing civil rights law.
Roth, in his closing argument, urged the eight-person jury to make an example of the company and send a message to other employers. He alluded to line about ending “old hatreds” in President Obama’s inaugural speech the month before.
“That is the whole point of this case,” Roth said. “People don’t believe this stuff stills goes on.”
Kitchen had audio recordings of the workers using racial slurs against him.
Roth said crew members working on a roof shot nails at Kitchen while he walked below, forcing him to run as they repeatedly fired after him.
An eyewitness at trial testified that Kitchen’s coworkers frequently pelted him with pieces of wood, shingles and even chicken bones during the dinner break, Roth said.
In the recordings, Kitchen can be heard pleading with them to stop.
Roth said the recording made the day workers put a rope around Kitchen’s neck captured the sound of his body being dragged across the gravel on the job site.
“As they had the rope around him, they were hitting him with boards and stones,” Roth said. “It was this big game. The owner was quite literally right there. We don’t know if he threw anything. But he should have never allowed this to happen, of course.”
Kitchen escaped and never returned to work at the company.
The jury ruled company owner Willie Farrell did not personally create a work environment that allowed the abuse, Roth said...
I am ... trying to understand how in the name of sanity one could rule that the owner "did not personally create a work environment that allowed the abuse" when he was allegedly right there when it was happening. One would think that, at a minimum, not going over to your staff and saying, "People, don't lynch the nice black guy," would indicate that the owner, at the least, did not discourage a hostile work environment as enthusiastically as he perhaps should have done. But then, I have never pretended to understand how the law and/or juries operate on such questions.
Given that, a recent publication in the Asheville Citizen-Times is somehow a bit less surprising than it somehow might otherwise be.
Posted by iain at February 11, 2009 04:04 PM
