Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, RETALIATION—4th Cir.: Worker fired after profanity-laced complaints of discrimination has retaliatory discharge claim revived, (Aug 14, 2026)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

In a confrontation with his manager before he was fired, the employee used the word “mother****r” three times, amongst profane comments.

Vacating summary judgment against the retaliatory discharge claim asserted by an African-American driver—who was fired for the way he talked to his manager during a profanity-laced confrontation in the manager’s office regarding the racial harassment he had experienced during his short tenure with the industrial waste recycling company—the Fourth Circuit noted that the company first told him he was fired based on his admitted use of profanity and then subsequently claimed he was fired because of other “belligerent and insubordinate conduct” the employee said never occurred. “Contrary to the district court,” said the Fourth Circuit, “this engenders genuine disputes of material facts... as to whether [the company’s] claim of ‘belligerent and insubordinate’ conduct” is a pretext for retaliation. Dissenting, Judge Quattlebaum argued that “questioning whether [the employee] was, in fact, intimidating or threatening misses the mark in answering whether [the company] honestly believed he was belligerent and insubordinate” (Stewart v. GES Recycling South Carolina LLC, No. 24-1523 (4th Cir. Aug.13, 2026)).

The employee worked for about four months for a subsidiary of a Spanish multinational corporation engaged in the recycling of “metal scrap.” According to him, not only was profane language commonly used by both workers and management in the plant, the use of racially derogatory language was also common, including the repeated use of the “n-word.”

Coworker’s comments. One coworker in particular told the employee and another African-American worker, while they were riding in the bed of his truck, that he did not “want to be looking like the n****r slave driver” and told the employee that a white crane operator had referred to him and other African-American drivers as “stupid n*****s.” The coworker was also part of a Facebook group that posted racist cartoons that he repeatedly showed to the employee.

The employee did not complain because, he claimed, his manager told him on the day he was hired not to associate with two particular Black employees “because they complain about discrimination.” He also believed the manager denied him opportunities, based on his race, to train as a crane operator and qualify for a higher pay rate.

Suspension. Shortly before his termination, the manager witnessed the employee being greeted by two African-American coworkers during a shift change with a “fist pound.” The manager then poked out his bottom lip and approached the employee with his fist up. The employee looked up and then away. Shortly after that, the employee saw the manager in the breakroom and mentioned the racial harassment he had encountered at the plant, telling the manager “I don’t like being around all you mother*****s” like that cause they childish.”

The manager left the breakroom and then called the employee to his office and told him to sit down. The employee refused. In the ensuing confrontation, the employee again complained about the racial discrimination, saying he was “tired of this bullshit place” and it was “real f****d up how they run this shit.” The manager suspended him for the day and left the office. When the employee overheard him telling another worker over the phone he had been suspended, he again confronted him, saying among other things “You ain’t shit[,] mother****r.”

Terminated. He was approached by a second manager who calmed him down and sent him home. A week later, he was fired for the way he talked to his manager. An investigation into his coworker’s conduct was opened and closed in one day, resulting in a written warning.

Lower court proceedings. The employee subsequently sued, asserting claims under Section 1981 for a racially hostile work environment, race discrimination in training and promotion opportunities, and retaliatory discharge. A magistrate recommended awarding summary judgment to the company on the hostile work environment and race discrimination claims, finding them time-barred, but denying summary judgment on the retaliatory discharge claim. The district court, adopting the report in part, granted summary judgment on all three claims.

Retaliatory discharge. On appeal, the employee contested only the grant of summary judgment on his retaliatory discharge claim. The Fourth Circuit agreed with his contention that the lower court failed to recognize a material fact dispute as to whether retaliation was a but-for cause of his termination. Specifically, the court rejected the lower court’s ruling that, under the McDonnell Douglas framework, the employee failed to show the company’s proffered reason for the termination was pretext for retaliation.

Belligerent and insubordinate. The court rejected the district court’s view that there was no dispute the “belligerent and insubordinate conduct” claimed by the company in fact occurred because it was a “given” fact that the employee “presented his complaints” to his manager in a “belligerent and insubordinate manner,” or, in other words, in an intimidating and threatening way. While the district court emphasized that “the outburst [the employee] directed toward [his manager] was so disruptive that [another worker] ended up asking [the employee] to be quiet and the second manager eventually intervened to attempt to calm [the employee] down and then told him to go home,” the employee claimed that at worse, he used profane language and raised his voice.

The employee admitted the other worker told him to be quiet and the second manager intervened to calm him down, but the appropriate inference, said the court, is not that their actions were attributable to any purported “belligerent and insubordinate conduct” on the employee’s part. Rather, the court explained, the appropriate inference to be drawn from the fact that the other worker told the employee to be quiet is that she simply objected to the volume or substance of what she heard him say to the manager. “Indeed, a directive to be quiet is hardly an expected response to the type of ‘belligerent and insubordinate conduct’ claimed by [the company].”

Moreover, said the court, there was no evidence as to how loud the employee spoke or that he spoke so loudly as to be intimidating or threatening. As to the fact the second manager calmed him down, the appropriate inference, the court explained, is that he needed to be calmed down because he was admittedly “very very upset” and “one can be ‘very very upset’ without being intimidating or threatening.” Concluding that neither the facts cited by the district court nor any other aspect of the employee’s account compelled a conclusion that he engaged in “belligerent and insubordinate conduct,” the court found instead that his behavior could be viewed as a “non-intimidating, non-threatening, and wholly understandable response” to the series of events that led up to the confrontation with his manager.

Use of profanity. The court also rejected the district court’s view that there was no dispute the company always blamed the employee’s termination on belligerent and insubordinate conduct beyond the mere use of profane language. On this matter, said the court, the district court equated the employee’s evidence he was told the termination was because of “the way you talked” to his manager with the second manager’s declaration that the termination was because of the employee’s “belligerent and insubordinate conduct.”

Here, said the court, the appropriate inference to be drawn from the employee’s evidence is that when the second manager told him the termination was because of “the way you talked” to his manager, he was referring to the employee’s use of profanity, and not to some other “belligerent and insubordinate conduct.” The court found it significant that the employee’s arguments throughout the litigation plainly reflected an understanding that the second manager told him he was being terminated for profanity alone.

As to whether profanity alone could be a plausible reason for his termination, the employee presented evidence that profanity was widely used at the plant. He also claimed he used the word “mother****r” three times during the confrontation before his manager suspended him, arguing that “[i]f the use of the profanity was such an egregious event, one would think that [the manager] would have suspended [him] immediately, especially when the first two times occurred in the [breakroom] in the presence of another employee.”

Finding genuine disputes of material fact as to whether the company’s claim of “belligerent and insubordinate conduct” was false or has changed over time, the court vacated the district court’s summary judgment award to the company on the retaliatory discharge claim.

Dissent. Dissenting, Judge Quattlebaum argued that “[the company’s] Union County location sounds like an awful place to work. The record reflects prevalent racism, profanity and vulgarity. I don’t condone or minimize any of that conduct. But the only question before us is whether the district court properly granted summary judgment on [the employee’s] retaliation claim. And the only issue on that claim is whether [the employee] has raised a genuine dispute of material fact on whether [the company’s] stated reason for terminating him—for belligerent and insubordinate conduct—was untrue. For the reasons I’ve explained, he hasn’t. As a result, he has failed to withstand summary judgment on whether his protected activity was the but-for cause of his termination. So, I would affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to GES on his retaliation claim.”

The case is No. 24-1523.

Judge: King, R.

Attorneys: Geraldine Sumter (Ferguson Chamber & Sumter) for Eddie Stewart. Benjamin Paul Fryer (FordHarrison) for GES Recycling South Carolina, LLC.

Companies: GES Recycling South Carolina, LLC

Cases: Retaliation RaceDiscrimination Discrimination Discharge MarylandNews NorthCarolinaNews SouthCarolinaNews VirginiaNews WestVirginiaNews