A federal district court in Texas has permitted a former African American sales representative to take her race and color discrimination claims to trial after she presented evidence that her supervisor made multiple comments about having too many black employees on his staff. Turner v. The Hershey Co., No. 4:12-cv-03365 (S.D. Tex., Oct. 3, 2014).
Yolanda Turner began working for The Hershey Company in 1998, most recently as a Houston-area retail sales representative from 2003 until her termination in 2011. Her supervisor was Russell Williams, an African-American male. Turner’s job duties included selling Hershey products, merchandising, and maintaining salability of authorized Hershey products. Turner, like all retail sales representatives, used a handheld device to track the time she spent in stores.
In November 2011, Williams monitored Turner’s performance and noticed that his documentation of the time Turner spent in each store did not correspond to the information she inputted into her handheld device. Turner was suspended with pay pending an investigation into her alleged falsification of data and was fired on December 14, 2011. She was replaced by a white woman.
Turner sued Hershey for Title VII race and color discrimination, based on her termination. Hershey did not dispute that Turner established a prima facie case of discriminatory discharge. Instead, Hershey argued that Turner was fired for legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for which there was no pretext. Namely, Hershey argued that Turner was fired for falsifying data in November 2011 and that a Caucasian employee was similarly terminated for falsification of records.
Following Hershey’s presentation of a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for Turner’s discharge, Turner bore the burden of presenting evidence that Hershey’s reason was pretextual – that Hershey intentionally discriminated against Turner because of her race and color. For her part, Turner argued that her supervisor, Williams, instructed “Black African-American sales staff” to use her handheld device just as she had. She also argued that Williams warned black employees that they “were being targeted for termination because they are [b]lack.” Three other employees confirmed that Williams had advised them to falsify data. Numerous employees corroborated her testimony that Williams “regularly stated that he had too many blacks on his sales team.” Finally, Turner disputed that a similarly situated Caucasian employee was terminated, stating that the employee was given the option to resign and receive a favorable reference.
Denying Hershey’s motion, the court reasoned that Turner presented undisputed evidence that Williams directed her and others to disregard Hershey policy for entering data. Consequently, a jury could reasonably find that Hershey’s reasons were pretextual – Williams “intentionally exaggerated his concern over such conduct, and that conduct was not the real reason she was discharged.” The court also credited Turner’s evidence that Williams routinely told his sales team that “he had too many blacks on his team, he needed to get rid of blacks on his team, and he would not hire more blacks.” Williams’ statements “reflect discriminatory animus of the person who undisputedly made the decision to discharge plaintiff.” That Williams himself is African-American would not prevent the fact-finder from reasonably concluding that Turner’s discharge was motivated by discriminatory animus.