Opinion ID: 2978769
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Larsen Cash

Text: Larsen Cash was employed at the La Vergne Whirlpool facility from 1986 until 2006, when he was terminated several days after his deposition in this case. Like his co-plaintiffs, Cash made numerous allegations of racial harassment that he neither witnessed nor learned of outside the context of this litigation. He also relied heavily on harassment by Dale Travis. According to Cash, Travis was “going around using the word ni all the time,” and would taunt African-Americans by “hollering real loud, hey, white boy, hey white boy, and that was [on] a daily basis.” Cash also stated that he had heard Travis say that “white people had better watch out, there’s a bunch of ni taking over.” Cash testified during his deposition that he had personally complained about -8- No. 08-6376 Armstrong v. Whirlpool Travis and knew that others had also done so, but that nothing had ever been done about the complaints or Travis’ behavior. According to Cash, supervisors addressed him by the name “boy” or “big boy” on at least two occasions. He also testified that one supervisor had constantly referred to African-American men as “boys.” Cash stated that he had heard second-hand that a manager had said of an AfricanAmerican employee, “that’s my ni, ain’t that right boy? That’s my ni.” Cash also heard that when an African-American employee had baked a cake for a Caucasian employee, the Caucasian employee had thrown the cake in the trash and had “said he didn’t want no cake no ni had made.” Cash heard that a co-worker called an African-American employee a sand head or a rag head. Additionally, Cash testified that a Caucasian group leader had called African-American women “ni,” and had said “Dale [Travis] does it, why can’t I?” Cash also testified that he had observed racially offensive graffiti in the plant, and in speaking of the graffiti shown in Beasley’s pictures, Cash said, “this stuff right here has been on the wall for 19 years that I’ve been there.” Cash stated that he recalled seeing the words “rag heads” and “sand ni” on the wall, and the phrases, “wish all you ni would go back . . . we made mistake . . . bringing you over here,” and “I wish we could have a James Earl Ray Day so we could all get off for killing that ni,” in addition to other derogatory statements that he could not recall. Cash testified that he had complained about this graffiti on several occasions. During his deposition, Cash also discussed the supervisor’s notebook that Whirlpool had learned of during Beasley’s deposition. Cash claimed that he had found the notebook lying on the -9- No. 08-6376 Armstrong v. Whirlpool factory floor and had decided to give it to Beasley, rather than to a supervisor or to his lawyer. When asked why he had not returned the notebook, Cash stated that he had not returned it because it had notes on Cash and Beasley, and because he had not known whose property it was. Later in his deposition, however, Cash indicated that he that he knew the notebook belonged to his supervisor, Bill Westberry, but had not returned the notebook because “it was notes on me.” Like Beasley, Cash was terminated shortly after his deposition and submitted a grievance before an independent arbitrator. The arbitrator upheld Whirlpool’s decision to terminate Cash for violations of company policy, and Cash added a claim for retaliatory discharge.