Former UPS Worker Claiming Racial Discrimination Awarded $237 million

Spokane, WAA jury has awarded a former United Parcel Service (UPS) worker over $237 million in a racial discrimination lawsuit last month in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Washington at Yakima. One attorney for the plaintiff said it is likely the biggest of its kind and the biggest ever in the state.

Plaintiff Tahvio Gratton, a Black man, worked as a Cover Driver and Delivery Driver for UPS from September 2016 to October 2021. Gratton said he was subjected to discrimination and a hostile work environment when he was transferred to the Yakima UPS center in January 2018. He filed a Racial Discrimination lawsuit in October 2022 with Judge Thomas O. Rice presiding over the case. (Rice denied a UPS bid for summary judgement earlier this year.)

Bloomberg reported that Gratton was awarded $39.6 million for emotional distress and $198 million in punitive damages for the following allegations:

• Racial discrimination in work assignments, route allocation, disciplinary actions, and ultimately termination. The company consistently favored white employees over Gratton and other Black drivers when scheduling and allocating work opportunities.
• UPS managers created and maintained a racially hostile work environment through racist language, unfair scrutiny of Black employees, and disparate treatment.
• Gratton opposed discriminatory practices and filed complaints, but UPS retaliated by restricting his work assignments further. They subjected him to increased scrutiny and fabricated performance issues.
• UPS failed to properly compensate Gratton for forced layoffs and manipulated his work schedule to deny him rightful pay and benefits.
•  UPS unlawfully terminated Gratton because of his race and in retaliation for his protected activities of opposing discrimination and assisting other employees with complaints.

Wrongful Termination

The jury didn’t believe UPS’s reason for firing Gratton – which followed an investigation that he sexually assaulted a female coworker. UPS said that Gratton touched his colleague’s hip while she was bent over. According to the Spokesman Review, Gratton’s attorney attempted to show that the accusation was retaliatory and maintained in court documents that his firing was due to discrimination and retaliation.

Racial Discrimination

Gratton claimed that he was treated differently than his white colleagues, according to his lawsuit. He was ignored and spoken down to by a supervisor who was friendly to white drivers; he was routinely ignored for work assignments in favor of part-time drivers, which violated a union agreement that full-time drivers be given and guaranteed preferential route assignments. He was the only full-time driver not given work, and not being assigned a route was in reality a daily layoff.

Gratton’s manager, who is white and younger than Gratton, kept calling him “Boy” when they spent the day riding together in April 2018. “Move faster, Boy, let’s go!” and “Boy, I told you to hurry!” he said. A Footlocker employee described the manager’s conduct toward Gratton as “shocking” when they stopped at her store. She said Gratton was working quickly and efficiently and heard him repeatedly called “Boy” by the manager, which she interpreted as due to him being Black.

Gratton filed numerous complaints about being discriminated against, which resulted in worse assignments or no work. He signed up for the worst time-consuming route – one that required delivering many large packages at a mall. A manager tried to have another driver bid for the mall route but that worker refused. The Spokesman reported that Gratton wasn’t the only worker who was discriminated against. Other Black employees were also assigned more difficult routes and then criticized for taking too long. One Black driver was forced to cut his hair after he complained he was not being paid correctly, but White drivers were allowed to wear long hair. White drivers were allowed to wear sweaters and visible tattoos – Black workers were not.

UPS Plans

UPS has asked Judge Rice not to enter the judgment, saying the amount is excessive and that Gratton had not proved his case. It also plans to ask for a new trial or a reduced judgment, according to a federal court document. A UPS spokesperson said the company takes retaliation seriously, has prevention policies in place, and maintains its former driver was fired for an unprovoked assault. The case is Gratton v. United Parcel Service Inc., E.D. Wash., 22-cv-3149.