Wal-Mart can't avoid paying contractor who charged harassment
By Laurie Asseo, Associated Press, 01/10/00
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday refused to free Wal-Mart Stores from having to pay $300,000 to an independent contractor in Maine who said he was subjected to racial harassment while doing his job.
The court, without comment, rejected an appeal in which Wal-Mart's lawyers said independent contractors do not have the same right as employees to collect damages over a hostile work environment.
Benjamin Guiliani's company, Danco, was hired in 1994 to regularly remove litter and sand from the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store in Augusta, Maine.
Guiliani, who is Mexican-American, said someone spray-painted the words "white supremacy" on the parking lot. He said his son saw a Wal-Mart employee at the same spot with a can of spray paint, but the man denied involvement.
The store manager promised to have the graffiti removed, but Guiliani said it was not.
Guiliani also said an off-duty store employee yelled a racial slur at him and, in a separate incident, told him "I don't like your kind" and pushed him.
He said a new store manager told him he had overreacted to the incidents, and the store terminated his contract in early 1995 after criticizing the quality of his work.
He sued Wal-Mart under an 1866 civil rights law that was amended by Congress in 1991 to let employees sue over on-the-job racial harassment. The law allows people to "make and enforce contracts" without being subject to racial discrimination.
A jury awarded Guiliani $650,000 after finding that Wal-Mart allowed him to be subjected to a hostile work environment. The judge reduced the award to $300,000.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that award, saying the law allowed independent contractors to make such claims.
In the appeal acted on today, Wal-Mart's lawyers said Congress intended the law to allow hostile-environment lawsuits by employees only, not by independent contractors.
But Guiliani's lawyers said the law's "expansive language obviously includes independent contractors."
The case is Wal-Mart Stores vs. Danco, 99-434.
