Court Opinion

ID: 9497254
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:46:53.058098+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:05.170434
License: Public Domain

RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
While I join in most of the Court’s result, I believe that we should also reverse the dismissal of the hostile-work-environment claim. In my opinion, the repeated, seemingly habitual, use of anti-Asian and other slurs in front of Mr. Bainbridge created a hostile work environment.
I agree with most of the Court’s statement of the law. To survive the summary-judgment motion, Mr. Bainbridge needed to show that he was a member of a protected class, that he was subjected to unwelcome harassment because of his membership in the protected class, and that the harassment affected a term or condition of his employment. Ante at 758-759. Further, he needed to show that the harass*762ment was both objectively and subjectively offensive. Ibid.
I also agree with the Court’s statement of the facts. Mr. Bainbridge, a white man married to a woman of Japanese descent, heard his employers and fellow employees make offensive anti-Asian slurs approximately once a month during his two-year employment, translating to roughly 25 disparaging comments. His employers, the owners of the store, knew that the comments were being made (in no small part because they were making them), and that the remarks were extremely offensive to Mr. Bainbridge. Ante at 759-760.
I disagree, however, with the Court’s application of the facts to the law. I find the conduct here objectively offensive, and I believe the case should have proceeded to trial.
The Court relies heavily on the case of Jackson v. Flint Ink N. Am. Corp., 370 F.3d 791 (8th Cir.2004). I think the level of conduct in this case satisfies the Jackson standard. In Jackson, the plaintiff, an African-American, endured hearing six racial epithets in 17 months and was exposed to graffiti depicting a burning cross and Klu Klux Klan markings. Id. at 793-794. The Court in Jackson, although finding the graffiti combined with the comments sufficient evidence to survive a summary-judgment motion, did not believe the comments standing alone were sufficiently offensive. Id. at 795. Wanting to avoid turning Title VII into a “code of workplace civility,” the Court reasoned that the slurs “were infrequent and few in number,” and that there was no “steady barrage of opprobrious racial comment.” Ibid. It noted that the result in our hostile-environment jurisprudence turns on the pervasiveness of the offensive conduct. Id. at 794. Similarly, we have held elsewhere that “[ojffhand comments and isolated incidents of offensive conduct (unless extremely serious) do not constitute a hostile work environment.” Burkett v. Glickman, 327 F.3d 658 (8th Cir.2003).
While I concede that looking to the number of incidents per month reduces what is likely a horrific emotional experience to a numeric fraction, objectively, I think one comment every three months is different than one comment a month. Imagine an employee who gets paid once a month, and every time he goes to pick up his paycheck, he is insulted or overhears a racial slur; it is almost an exchange. I believe our Court would have no problem finding that offensive enough to survive a summary-judgment motion. This case is no different than the hypothetical except that Mr. Bainbridge did not know when to expect the comment. Once a month a remark by his boss or his co-worker would degrade his wife. That does not seem “offhanded” or “isolated.” A jury could reasonably find that this pattern of conduct was habitual, routine, and pervasive.
In Crawford v. Runyon, 37 F.3d 1338 (8th Cir.1994), we held that “summary judgment should seldom be used in employment discrimination cases.” Id. at 1341. Since the decision in Runyon, we have affirmed many summary-judgment orders in employment-discrimination cases, see e.g., Wheeler v. Aventis Pharm., 360 F.3d 853 (8th Cir.2004), and rightly so. Some cases just shouldn’t be litigated. But, I still believe there is merit to the Runyon principle. In a case such as this, where there is a lot of evidence demonstrating discriminatory behavior over a sustained period of time, we should not stand in for the jury. I would reverse. This hostile-work-environment claim meets the standard set out in Jackson and should go to trial.