01-1293 Cerros v. Steel Technologies, Inc.

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“The district court acknowledged that it had to consider the totality of the circumstances, but its findings of fact fell short of what Harris, Oncale, and Breeden require; moreover, its ultimate conclusion does not seem to have taken into account the underlying facts it found earlier in the opinion. In terms of omissions, we do not know exactly how often the offensive grafitti and taunts appeared, and as pervasiveness is certainly one factor to consider, see Breeden, this is a critical omission. In terms of unexplained inconsistencies, we note that the district court had already found that Cerros was subjected to direct and highly offensive racial epithets by employees and supervisors that referred to him as brown boy, spic, wetback, Julio and Javier. Both supervisors and other employees talked down to him, and muttered things under their breath. In addition, racial epithets and slogans were painted on bathroom walls. Some were about Hispanics (and recall that there were only a tiny number of Hispanics working at the Portage facility).

Others touted the KKK and White Power. Some were racially derogatory statements about Cerros himself, by name. On top of that, the tires on Cerros’s car were slashed while he had it parked at work. Although Cerros did not know who slashed his tires or why, he did notify Steel about the incident, and Steel did nothing in response.”

Vacated and remanded.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Springmann, Mag. J., Diane P. Wood, J.