A discrimination and wrongful termination lawsuit has been filed against a Lynchburg, Virginia, HVAC company, alleging that one of its workers was subjected to racial slurs and other bigoted threats while he was on the job.
The plaintiff says while working at the company he received threatening text messages from his co-workers — and despite the graphic nature of the correspondence, his employer never addressed it.
The lawsuit documents, obtained by Atlanta Black Star, claim he was terminated after complaining about the 2021 incidents to officials. A former plumbing apprentice for Southern Air, Adrian O’Neil Mitchell, is now suing the company for $5 million, according to ABC 13.
Mitchell, who is Black, says he was hired on Aug. 1, 2021, and a little over a month later, his site supervisor, who was white, started making offensive jokes and using the N-word with him.
After reporting the site supervisor to his higher-up, Mitchell’s lawsuit alleges his boss said — while “brandishing a weapon at Mr. Mitchell” — “If I got fired because of you, I know where you live and it won’t end well for you.”
By November 2021, the threats and bigoted language did not stop, and so Mitchell reached out to human resources. Still, nothing seemed to help, the claim states.
The complaint says after he reported the offenses, he started getting “suspended without pay at various points and eventually deemed terminated from employment.” He believes this was in retaliation.
Mitchell filed his recent claim through the Lynchburg Circuit Court, according to court documents, adding Southern Air is responsible “for racial discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination, and suffering through a racially-charged hostile work environment” he experienced while employed with Southern Air, Inc.
According to Mitchell, while working for Southern Air, his site supervisor called him “heinous racial slurs.” He said one even threatened he was…
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