Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RACE—M.D. Tenn.: Fired warehouse worker, allegedly called ‘slave,’ may proceed with retaliation claim, (Aug 4, 2026)

By Wendy Biddle, J.D.

The retaliation claim survived on the strength of disputed facts and the defendant's shifting termination rationale.

An African-American warehouse worker who was fired on the same day she reported to HR that her white supervisor had called her a slave may proceed with her retaliation claim, a federal district court found. She brought claims of race discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, arguing that her supervisor had treated her poorly from the start, that the racial slur confirmed the discriminatory nature of that treatment, and that her termination minutes after she reported the comment was no coincidence. Granting judgment to Leviton on the discrimination and hostile work environment claims the court allowed the retaliation claim to go to trial. The opinion turned on whether a coworker's secondhand account of the slur could survive a hearsay objection, whether that single alleged comment was severe enough to sustain a hostile work environment claim, and whether the company's contradictory accounts of how her employment ended raised a genuine dispute about pretext (Bates v. Leviton Manufacturing Co., No. 3:24-cv-01414 (M.D. Tenn. July 31, 2026)).

Warehouse worker. The employee, an African American woman, was hired as a Warehouse I worker at Leviton's Nashville facility in January 2023. Her direct supervisor was Caucasian. The warehouse worker reported to the human resources manager within weeks of starting that her supervisor was dismissive, gave vague instructions, and spoke negatively about other employees. The HR manager told her to give it more time.

Performance review. On February 10, 2023, the warehouse worker received her first performance review. When she was given the paperwork to sign, the warehouse worker noticed additional documents underneath with her name on them. Her supervisor told her those had to be reviewed with the HR manager first. The warehouse worker insisted they go to HR immediately. There, she accused her supervisor of lying about her. The review noted no attendance problems but flagged attitude complaints. The warehouse worker disputed the attitude characterization and refused to sign. HR sent the warehouse worker home for the rest of the day.

Reassigned. When the warehouse worker returned to work on February 13, she was reassigned from the Split Cases department to Full Cases. She did not object. By February 19, she had drafted a resignation letter citing unfair treatment by her supervisor and physical discomfort from the new assignment. The HR manager persuaded her to stay.

Called a “slave.” On March 20, 2023, the warehouse worker skipped a mid-shift meeting. A coworker told her afterward that her supervisor had called her a "slave" during the meeting. The warehouse went directly to the HR manager’s office to report it.

Discharge. What happened next is disputed. According to the warehouse worker, the HR manager fired her within minutes of hearing the complaint, citing a pallet-pushing incident, an unexcused absence, and a third unspecified policy violation. The HR manager then took her badge and walked her to her locker. According to the supervisor and the HR manager, the meeting had been scheduled before the warehouse worker arrived to address those very performance and attendance issues. They testified the conversation escalated, the warehouse worker became loud and argumentative, placed her badge on the desk, and walked out. Neither the supervisor nor the HR manager claimed to have told the warehouse worker she was fired. The warehouse worker did not return the next day and was officially terminated on March 21 for job abandonment. The worker then filed an EEOC claim.

The HR manager's deposition described the separation as a "mutual decision," acknowledged that "the decision had been made to terminate her employment, but the words were never spoken," and agreed as the warehouse worker's corporate representative that the warehouse worker was terminated. The HR manager also claimed that the worker did not report that the supervisor had referred to the worker as a slave, but claimed she first heard of the allegation in the EEOC charge. The company's EEOC position statement said she was fired for productivity, safety, attendance, and punctuality, and that her "verbal abuse" at the March 20 meeting left the company no choice.

Lawsuit and present motion. After exhausting her administrative remedies, the worker filed this lawsuit against Leviton claiming race discrimination, racial harassment/hostile work environment, and retaliation in violation of Title VII and Section 1981. Leviton moved for summary judgment on all claims.

Race discrimination claim. The court applied the McDonnell Douglas framework. To establish a prima facie case, the worker needed to show, among other things, that she was replaced by someone outside her protected class or treated worse than a similarly situated non-protected employee.

She could do neither. Leviton showed without contradiction that it did not replace her and distributed her duties among existing staff. The worker offered no comparator evidence.

Her fallback argument was that the "slave" comment constituted independent evidence of discriminatory animus sufficient to satisfy the fourth element under a flexible reading of the prima facie standard. The court rejected the coworker’s statement as hearsay. The coworker told the worker out of court that he heard the supervisor make the comment, and the worker offered it to prove the supervisor actually said it. The coworker did not testify, and the worker submitted no affidavit or declaration from him. The court noted that hearsay rules are not strictly applied at summary judgment, but only where the proponent shows the evidence could be presented in admissible form at trial. The worker made no such showing.

Stripped of that allegation, what remained was the worker's account of a difficult working relationship with her supervisor and the court ruled that was not enough to show race discrimination. The court granted summary judgment to the company for the race discrimination claim.

Hostile work environment claim. The hostile work environment claim required the worker to show harassment that was based on race and severe or pervasive enough to alter the conditions of her employment. The court walked through the governing standard carefully.

A single incident can create a hostile work environment, but the cases where courts have found that are ones involving physical threats, assault, or conduct of comparable gravity. Offensive words, even racially charged ones, have consistently been held insufficient. The court pointed to Williams v. CSX Transportation Co., 643 F.3d 502 (6th Cir. 2011), where a supervisor called Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton "monkeys" and told Black employees to go back where they came from, and the Sixth Circuit still found the comments fell short.

The court accepted for purposes of the motion that the coworker told the worker about the "slave" comment, without accepting that the supervisor actually said it. Even on those terms, a single rumored utterance did not clear the bar. The worker’s other complaints about her supervisor involved dismissiveness, vague instructions, and a disputed performance review. None of those had any racial dimension. The court found the overall picture reflected interpersonal conflict, not race-based hostility. Therefore, the court granted summary judgment in favor of the company.

Retaliation claim. The retaliation claim required the worker to show she engaged in protected activity, Leviton knew about it, she suffered an adverse employment action, and a causal connection existed between the two.

Reporting a racial slur to HR is protected activity under Title VII. The court accepted the worker’s account that she told the HR manager specifically that the supervisor had called her a slave. That the HR manager denied it was a credibility dispute for the jury. Termination is an adverse action. And the alleged gap between the protected activity and the termination, according to the worker, was minutes. The court found that temporal proximity alone was enough to establish causation at the prima facie stage.

Leviton then had to offer a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for the termination, which it did: accumulated performance, safety, and attendance problems. The burden shifted back to the worker to show pretext.

She pointed to the contradictions in Leviton's own account. The HR manager said no one fired the worker. She also said the termination was mutual. She also agreed as a corporate representative that the worker was terminated. The EEOC submission offered a fourth version, attributing the termination to productivity, safety, attendance, and punctuality failures along with the worker’s conduct at the meeting. The court found that an employer's shifting justifications are themselves evidence of pretext, because inconsistency undermines the credibility of each individual explanation.

Leviton's reply brief did not engage with the pretext argument. It continued to insist the termination facts were undisputed. The court noted they were not, and that it was required to accept the worker’s version for purposes of the motion. Because Leviton failed to respond to the pretext argument, it could not show it was entitled to summary judgment on the retaliation claim.

The case is No. 3:24-cv-01414.

Judge: Trauger, A.

Attorneys: Lorraine Wade (Law Offices of Lorraine Wade) for Rukiya Bates. Jennifer S. Rusie (Jackson Lewis) for Leviton Manufacturing Co., Inc.

Companies: Leviton Manufacturing Co., Inc.

Cases: Discrimination RaceDiscrimination Retaliation Discharge TennesseeNews