U.s. Appeals Court Reinstates Lawsuit Over Harassment That Drove Cuban Employee To Light Himself On Fire

From the Florida Phoenix:

By Michael Moline

Alexis Soto Fernandez’s boss started tormenting people of Cuban extraction.

The campaign was relentless, with fresh insults nearly every day. It got so bad that Fernandez doused himself with gasoline and tried to light himself on fire in the workplace.

A federal trial judge in Florida ruled that Fernandez had no grounds to sue the company for workplace harassment and national-origin discrimination.

But a federal appeals court didn’t fully agree — meaning Fernandez can go back to court to try to prove his case.

That ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit came down on Tuesday.

The case identifies the company involved as Trees Inc., a Houston-based contractor that trims vegetation near utility lines. The opinion didn’t identify the location within Florida — just that the trial court was within the Middle District of Florida, which includes Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa.

The ruling cited a near-daily barrage of slurs against Cuban people by supervisor Adam Soto after he got involved in a physical alteration with a worker the court described as “Cuban.” His least profane statements were “crying, whining Cubans” and, “New policy in the company, no more Cuban people.”

Complaints by Alexis Soto Fernandez and other employees did nothing to stop the onslaught, the court said. The company fired Fernandez after his workplace suicide attempt.

The appeals court concluded that the harassment was sufficiently severe and pervasive to justify a jury trial.

“Soto’s remarks repeatedly targeted a protected group with vulgar and derogatory language and continued unabated after complaints by Fernandez and his co-workers. Thus, a reasonable jury could conclude that Soto’s harassment was sufficiently serious to give rise to a hostile work environment claim,” Judge Jill Pryor wrote for the panel.

But the court found insufficient evidence that the “no more Cuban people” comment resulted in Fernandez’s firing.

“To prove that Trees terminated Fernandez because of national origin discrimination, Soto’s statement requires an inference — that Soto’s ‘new policy’ extended beyond hiring ‘no more Cuban people,’ but also to firing those Cubans who were already there,” the panel said.

“Soto’s statement — although reprehensible — is not direct evidence that Fernandez was fired because of his national origin.”

This story was originally published by the Florida Phoenix. For more stories from the Florida Phoenix, visit FloridaPhoenix.com.