(The following report appeared on Amtrak television station KTVU’s website on May 28.)
SAN FRANCISCO — A former Amtrak electrician from Hayward has won a $500,000 award from a federal jury in San Francisco on his claim that the railroad company subjected him to a racially hostile environment.
Abner Morgan, who is African-American, worked in Amtrak’s maintenance yard in Oakland from 1990 to 1995.
A jury in the court of U.S. District Judge Susan Illston granted the $500,000 judgment on Thursday after five weeks of trial and three days of jury deliberations on Morgan’s civil rights lawsuit.
One of his lawyers, Pamela Price, said today, “This sends a message to Amtrak and other large industrial work sites where racial epithets and other hostile acts are often routinely practiced by managers as part of the workplace culture.”
Another attorney, Jory Steele, said, “Mr. Morgan told me that this verdict means so much to him because it will help his friends and other African-Americans who are still working at the Oakland Yard.
“I hope it will inspire other people who have been victims of a racially hostile atmosphere to stand up for their rights,” Steele said.
A lawyer for Amtrak, Patrick Mullin, said, “We probably will appeal.”
Mullin said, “Amtrak takes the position there was never any harassment based on race.”
Morgan claimed in his lawsuit that he was denied training opportunities on the basis of his race, subjected to racial slurs by supervisors and retaliated against after he complained.
The trial this year was the second on Morgan’s civil rights lawsuit and took place after the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2002, the high court ruled that Morgan could bring in evidence of alleged incidents stretching over a period of several years in a trial on his hostile environment claim.
Previously, a federal trial judge had limited the case to incidents that happened after May 1994, or 300 days before Morgan filed a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission.
In the first trial on Morgan’s lawsuit, which was held under that limitation in evidence, a jury rejected Morgan’s claims and ruled in favor of Amtrak in 1998.
But when Morgan appealed, the U.S. Supreme Court said that in cases alleging an ongoing hostile environment, it is necessary for only one claimed violation to have occurred within the 300-day deadline. The court said evidence of similar earlier acts can also be considered.