A white manager who alleged he was denied a bonus because he fired a black subordinate employee had his civil rights suit greenlit last month in Illinois federal court. The manager and the employee had a tumultuous history together that included the employee previously being fired twice for missing work and failing to follow work directives. However, in each case, the employee successfully won his job back as a result of filing union grievances. On both occasions, the manager first sought approval to terminate the employee from the company, UPS Ground Freight (“UPS”).
In December 2015, after the employee once again missed work multiple times, the manager fired the employee without seeking approval. One month later, UPS denied the manager his entire 2015 bonus because it claimed the manager violated company policy by not first seeking approval to terminate the employee.
In his suit, the manager claims he had terminated other employees without approval before, but was never disciplined and always received his bonus. The manager also claimed that at a meeting with human resources (“HR”) and the company’s executives, the HR manager characterized his decision to fire the employee as a problem because he is white and the employee is black.
The judge, in permitting the lawsuit to go forward to trial, stated that a jury could accept that the executives’ adopted the HR manager’s comments when they remained silent and failed to object. In addition, despite UPS’s argument that the bonus was discretionary, the judge noted that since the bonus was given out every year to the manager and based on specific, well-defined criteria, the bonus was not discretionary and a jury could find that the failure to award the bonus amounted to discrimination if not given based on the manager’s race.