{"id":965,"date":"2015-10-19T10:23:33","date_gmt":"2015-10-19T14:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/events.lindabury.com\/?p=965"},"modified":"2025-02-05T11:24:13","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T16:24:13","slug":"anonymous-racist-note-triggers-liability-for-employer-who-failed-to-undertake-an-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/anonymous-racist-note-triggers-liability-for-employer-who-failed-to-undertake-an-investigation.html","title":{"rendered":"Anonymous Racist Note Triggers Liability for Employer Who Failed to Undertake an Investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A recent decision from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (a federal court with jurisdiction over MD, NC, SC and VA) is a stark reminder to employers of the consequences of failing to appropriately respond to <strong><em>any and all<\/em><\/strong> claims of unlawful workplace harassment no, matter what the source. In <em>Pryor v. United Air Lines, Inc.<\/em> (United), the Fourth Circuit vacated summary judgment entered for United by the court below, noting that the company\u2019s response to an anonymous violent and racially-charged note left for an employee was inadequate to shield the it from liability for creating a racially hostile work environment.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>The Facts:<\/u><\/strong> In January 2011 July Renee Pryor, an African-American flight attendant for United Airlines, Inc. at is Dulles Airport facility, found an anonymous note in her company mailbox located in a secure mailroom restricted to United employees. The note contained numerous racial slurs and claimed to be a hunting license permitting the holder to \u201chunt &amp; kill N****** . . . day or night, with or without dogs.&#8221; The note also contained an image of a lynching along with the words &#8220;this is for you.&#8221; Prior was frightened by the note an immediately shoed it to her supervisor, who told her he was \u201csorry\u201d but there was not much United could to because there were no security cameras in the mailroom. The supervisor then gave Pryor an incident report to fill and told her that the report, along with the racist note, would be provided to security and the base manager. Unfortunately, the supervisor did not comply with United\u2019s Harassment &amp; Discrimination Policy that instructed supervisors to immediately report all complaints to the Employee Service Center (ESC) who would conduct an investigation into the claims.<\/p>\n<p>Thereafter, United Management engaged in a series of missteps, including the following:<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/anonymous-racist-note-triggers-liability-for-employer-who-failed-to-undertake-an-investigation.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading Anonymous Racist Note Triggers Liability for Employer Who Failed to Undertake an Investigation\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent decision from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (a federal court with jurisdiction over MD, NC, SC and VA) is a stark reminder to employers of the consequences of failing to appropriately respond to any and all claims of unlawful workplace harassment no, matter what the source. In Pryor v. United Air Lines, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,247],"tags":[],"coauthors":[139],"class_list":["post-965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights","category-labor-employment-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Anonymous Racist Note Triggers Liability for Employer Who Failed to Undertake an Investigation &#8212; October 19, 2015 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A recent decision from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (a federal court with jurisdiction over MD, NC, SC and VA) is a stark reminder to employers of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/anonymous-racist-note-triggers-liability-for-employer-who-failed-to-undertake-an-investigation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Anonymous Racist Note Triggers Liability for Employer Who Failed to Undertake an Investigation &#8212; October 19, 2015 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. 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