Blog note: this article references a 2012 grand jury report (follow through to the end).
Riverside County has tentatively agreed to settle a lawsuit in which a black landfill employee alleged co-workers called him racial slurs and that he faced retaliation after complaining.
The settlement amount between the county and Frederick Ejiofor was not immediately available. The lawsuit was filed in Riverside County Superior Court in June 2017, about five years after a civil grand jury reported a pattern of racism — including by supervisors — in the county’s waste management agency.
Court records show a notice of conditional settlement in Ejiofor’s case was filed Monday, Aug. 19. The lawsuit was on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors’ Tuesday, Aug. 27, closed session agenda. The board made no public announcements after the closed-door session.
Rob Rodriguez, Ejiofor’s attorney, declined to comment until the settlement was finalized.
In court filings, lawyers for the county denied Ejiofor’s allegations. Riverside County spokeswoman Brooke Federico said county government has “a zero tolerance policy for any form of discrimination, and (will) investigate all complaints of discrimination.”
“The county is unaware of any pattern of racism or discriminatory behavior in any of its departments, including the Department of Waste Resources, and is proud of its commitment to a discrimination-free workplace,” she said.
Ejiofor, who lives in Riverside County, started work as a landfill safety monitor in June 2012, according to his complaint. The lawsuit doesn’t specify the landfill or landfills at which he worked.
One co-worker called Ejiofor a racial epithet “on approximately forty … different occasions” while another employee once called Ejiofor “a stupid African” and used a racial slur to describe Ejiofor once in May 2014 and twice in September 2014, the lawsuit alleged.
A third employee said “he did not like to hire black people because he viewed them as a threat,” the lawsuit alleged. The lawsuit alleged that Ejiofor’s supervisor in December 2015 said “You think you can come from Africa and file a lawsuit against us.”
Ejiofor “complained and reported these instances of discrimination and harassment” to his supervisor and the county “on several occasions,” but to his knowledge, nothing was done, the lawsuit alleged.
“In fact, (the) county’s employees, knowing that this conduct offended Mr. Ejiofor, continued and in some regards, escalated the unfavorable treatment,” the lawsuit read.
In December 2015, the lawsuit alleges, Ejiofor’s supervisor told him to “stop complaining, or his peer evaluations would be negatively affected.” Around that time, he was notified he was being denied a raise.
“Mr. Ejiofor contends he was denied a salary increase in retaliation” for complaining, the lawsuit alleged.
Ejiofor suffered a work-related injury stemming from the retaliation, the lawsuit alleged. It’s not clear from the lawsuit how he was injured or how the alleged retaliation led to him being hurt.
The injury caused Ejiofor to miss work between January 2016 and September 2016 and on Sept. 6 of that year, he was “wrongfully terminated … in violation of public policy,” according to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.
In 2012, the civil grand jury reported that at least two supervisors in the department used racial slurs against black employees. A former equipment operator who is black reported being called a racial epithet and told to eat in a rat- and insect-infested trailer, the grand jury report said. Twenty-one harassment and discrimination complaints were filed against the department between 2006 and 2012, the grand jury said.
In a formal response, county officials said two incidents of racial discrimination in the department dating to 1989 and 2004 had been addressed. Thirteen of the 21 complaints referenced by the jury were filed in 2011, 11 of those 13 were filed by two employees and no complaint alleged racial discrimination, the county’s response stated.
Lunch areas at the county’s Lamb Canyon landfill “are not crawling with rats and cats” and are clean, the response read. “Most importantly, the department strongly objects to the implication … that racially motivated discrimination, behavior or remarks are tolerated, overlooked or ignored,” the response added.
September 3, 2019
The Press-Enterprise
By Jeff Horseman
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