Judge slashes $237M jury award for Eastern WA worker for discrimination, retaliation

An Eastern Washington U.S. District judge has cut $198 million off a jury’s award to a former United Parcel Service driver for racial discrimination.

Former UPS driver Tahvio Gratton argued that he was fired in retaliation after he filed complaints.

Judge Thomas Rice let stand the remainder of the jury award, $39.6 million for Gratton, who is Black. The remaining money was for the emotional distress the Yakima man suffered.

“The district court correctly ruled that the punitive damages award was improper as a matter of law,” UPS said in a statement.

Now it plans to ask the court to overturn the $39.6 million portion of the jury verdict and to request a new trial, the company said.

Gratton, who is Black, started working for UPS in September 2016 and transferred to its Yakima center in January 2018, where he worked until he was fired in October 2021.

Gratton had an acrimonious relationship with two managers in Yakima, neither of whom now work for UPS, and filed several complaints about working conditions with his union. His work assignments deteriorated after filing grievances, he said, according to court documents.

He was assigned to drive a notoriously unreliable truck, given extra stops and some days not given any work or pay, even though work was available, he said.

He was treated differently than his white peers, with a supervisor ignoring him and speaking down to him while being friendly toward white drivers, according to court documents.

Black driver called ‘Boy’

In April 2018 a manager who was white and younger spent the day riding with Gratton and repeatedly called him “Boy,” according to the lawsuit he filed.

“Move faster, Boy, let’s go!” and “Boy, I told you to hurry!” he said, according to the lawsuit. When Gratton asked him to stop, the manager said he was from the South and that’s how he talked.

A Footlocker employee described the manager’s conduct and comments toward Gratton as “shocking” when they stopped at her store.

She said that Gratton was working quickly and efficiently and that she was certain the manager’s conduct was due to Gratton being Black, according to court documents.

Judge: Jury award unreasonable

Gratton was fired after an investigation into a complaint that he inappropriately touched another worker, grabbing her hip while she was bent over sorting through packages.

Gratton said he had tripped and reached out to steady himself against the worker’s back.

The worker and a witness called a UPS hotline and a regional security supervisor was assigned to investigate.

The decision to fire Gratton was made by a labor manager in Seattle who said he did not take Gratton’s grievances into consideration in making his decision, according to court documents.

UPS said the managers at the Yakima center did not have input on the decision, according to court documents.

The judge said there was no evidence that the managers who Gratton had filed complaints against tried to commandeer the investigation.

As a result, the judge ruled in UPS’s appeal of the jury verdict for punitive damages that the standard of reckless indifference or malicious intent had not been met.

Rice said the jury’s decision on punitive damages was not reasonable and there there was no evidentiary basis for its award.

Gratton now has a successful barbecue business, according to court documents.