Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—N.D. Ill.: Fired married couple, who failed to base claim on legal status, cannot advance state-law claim, (Jul 29, 2025)

By Tulay Turan, J.D.

The couple advanced their hostile work environment claims, however, based on evidence of a manager’s frequent racial slurs.

A married, Black couple, who worked for the same company and were both fired, failed to present a legally cognizable marital discrimination claim where they argued the identity of their spouse, rather than their legal status as married, caused adverse treatment, a federal district court in Illinois ruled. The court granted the company’s motion for summary judgment on that state-law claim and their Title VII claims for wrongful termination and retaliation. However, they presented sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment on their hostile work environment claims where a manager called the husband the N-word and other racial slurs, which distressed the wife, who also endured the manager’s racially charged language and coworkers’ harassment (Morris v. BorgWarner, No. 22-cv-2764 (N.D. Ill. July 25, 2025)).

The husband and wife, who are Black, worked for BorgWarner and, in 2021, the company transferred the husband to the Multi-Segmented Bonding Division (MSBD) to serve as team lead. That was the same department where his wife worked and because he was the only team lead there, he assigned work to his wife.

Complaints about married couple. Shortly after the husband’s transfer, employees began to submit complaints to the HR department about the couple. The complaints alleged that the two engaged in bullying and harassment and argued with one another, the husband showed favoritism to the wife, and the wife was insubordinate. The HR director asked an HR generalist to conduct an investigation, which resulted in a report consistent with the complaints. BorgWarner made some attempts to address the problem by having the employees work on different shifts and not interact while at work, but the complaints continued.

Termination. A few months later, the HR director decided to terminate the employees. He terminated the husband for the following reasons: he was harassing, intimidating, and bullying employees; past complaints made against him in years prior; his understanding that the employee failed to create separation between himself and his wife; and a belief that he was engaging in favoritism with the wife.

The HR director decided to terminate the wife because he believed the investigation established that she was insubordinate, argued with her husband on the production floor, and harassed, intimidated, and bullied other employees. As with the husband, he considered a past complaint against her, for which she was disciplined, which he considered to concern similar behavior.

Complaint filed. Thereafter, the employees filed marital discrimination, wrongful termination, retaliation, terms or conditions of employment, and hostile work environment claims. BorgWarner filed this motion for summary judgment.

Identity of spouse. First, the court granted BorgWarner’s motion for summary judgment on the employees’ marital spouse discrimination claim because the claim was not legally cognizable. The Illinois Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on an individual’s marital status. Illinois courts have held that discrimination based on the identity of an employee’s spouse does not constitute marital-status discrimination. Rather, a claim must be based on an individual’s legal status.

Here, the employees alleged discrimination on the basis that they were married to one another, were forced to work together, faced certain limitations when working together, and their termination ultimately was caused by their marriage to one another. The court found their claim was not legally cognizable because they argued that the identity of their spouse caused adverse treatment, not that they were discriminated against because they were married more generally.

Wrongful termination. Turning to the employees’ Title VII wrongful termination claims, the court found there was no evidence the decision to fire the employees was based on their race or was pretextual. The HR generalist investigated the complaints against the employees, and the HR director decided to terminate them as a result of the investigation. He believed the evidence that the husband was harassing, intimidating, and bullying employees, failed to follow instructions about separation from his wife at work, showed favoritism to his wife, and failed to respond to training and coaching about changing his behavior. He also factored in previous complaints against the employee, which he believed involved similar conduct.

Similarly, the HR director terminated the wife because he believed the investigation established that she was insubordinate, argued with her husband on the production floor, and harassed, intimidated, and bullied other female employees.

No pretext. The court rejected the employees’ arguments regarding pretext, which they based on alleged irregularities in the investigation. They pointed to the facts that the company terminated them four days apart, the HR director never conducted interviews himself, and the HR generalist believed a suspension and not termination was warranted. However, the court said, “these complaints go to the wiseness of [the HR director’s] ultimate decisions, not to whether he believed the basis for his decision, and as such are not relevant to establish pretext.” Without any evidence that the director did not believe the investigation materials presented to him, the court could not determine his decision to terminate them was pretextual. Accordingly, the court could not find that the alleged irregularities in the investigation would allow a reasonable jury to conclude the termination decision was pretextual.

No cat’s paw liability. Next, the court addressed the employees’ cat’s paw theory of liability, finding there was no evidence the area manager provided input upon which the HR director actually relied in making the termination decision. As such, there was no basis to impute the manager’s alleged bias onto the director and, thus, this theory of liability failed.

The employees argued the area manager was the proximate cause of their termination because he caused the husband to be transferred to the department where he supervised his wife. However, the court said, this theory does not support a cat’s paw theory of discrimination because it does not amount to “factual information or input that may have affected the adverse employment action.”

In addition, the employees provided no evidence suggesting the manager directly recommended termination to the HR director or that the director essentially rubber stamped the manager’s decision.

No comparators. Wrapping up the pretext analysis, the court found the employees failed to establish pretext through the identification of similarly situated comparators. The husband did not identify a similarly situated individual, but the wife did identify a male coworker. She reported the coworker to HR because he followed her, harassed her, and made her uncomfortable, but the company did not terminate him. The court found he was not an appropriate comparator because she provided no evidence that BorgWarner had previously disciplined him as it had disciplined her. Further, she was accused of insubordination, and there was no evidence that similar accusations were made against the coworker.

In addition, even if he were an otherwise appropriate comparator, there was no evidence the HR director treated him more favorably as there was no evidence he knew about the complaint against the coworker. “Without such knowledge, [the director] could not have treated the coworker in any way with respect to his conduct, let alone more favorably than [the wife],” the court wrote.

Thus, without any evidence of pretext, a jury could not conclude their termination was racially motivated. Accordingly, the court granted summary judgment in BorgWarner’s favor on the wrongful termination claims.

No retaliation. The court also granted summary judgment in BorgWarner’s favor on the employees’ retaliation claims because they failed to show they engaged in protected activity. They did not allege that they reported experiencing discrimination and a hostile-work environment to the HR generalist, and they provided no evidence that the HR director knew of their complaints. In fact, the evidence before the court indicated that he did not know. Thus, their retaliation claims failed.

Terms or conditions of employment. Likewise, the court granted summary judgment in BorgWarner’s favor on the employees’ terms or conditions of employment discrimination claim, finding no such claim existed. The complaint failed to allege that the decision to transfer the husband to the same department as his wife was racially motivated. In addition, there was no other indicia that the employees had brought such a claim. The court noted that even if there were such a claim, a reasonable jury could not conclude the husband’s transfer to MSBD was racially motivated where he conceded that the decision was not made based on his race.

Hostile work environment. Finally, the court denied BorgWarner’s motion for summary judgment on the employees’ hostile work environment claims. The court found that a reasonable jury could find the conduct the husband faced was severe. Over the course of his time in MSBD, he alleged he was subjected to frequent racial insults, including the N-word, by the area manager. For example, when the two first met, the manager remarked that he was “surprised” the employee was Black in light of his good attendance and told hm to “tell all the black people that have that lazy, entitlement mentality that their time is up.” In addition, the manager berated the employee with slurs.

Regarding the wife, the court found a reasonable jury could conclude the alleged harassment against her was pervasive. Although she did not allege that the manager directed racial slurs to her, she alleged her husband informed her of the way that he spoke to him, which caused her distress. She also alleged the manager frequently used racially charged language, like “you people” to refer to Black people in her presence.

In addition, she alleged she reported to the manager that she was being harassed daily by two coworkers, and he did nothing to stop the harassment for some time as to one of the coworkers, and did not ever stop the harassment from the other coworker. This conduct, the court found, amounted to a pervasively hostile work environment in the form of day-to-day harassment because the manager harbored discriminatory feelings about Black people. Accordingly, the court denied summary judgment as to both employees’ hostile work environment claims.

The case is No. 22-cv-2764.

Judge: Alonso, J.

Attorneys: Barry Alfred Gomberg (Barry A. Gomberg & Associates) for Christopher Morris. Carlos R. Pastrana (MWH Law Group) for BorgWarner.

Companies: BorgWarner

Cases: Discrimination RaceDiscrimination Retaliation Discharge StateLawClaims IllinoisNews