Steelworker Awarded $25 Million for Racial Harassment

A jury has awarded $25 million in damages to an employee of Luxembourg-based steel company ArcelorMittal, who says for years he endured racial harassment at his workplace, Agence France-Presse reports.

The African-American worker testified in a three-week trial that racial slurs and other incidents from 2005 to 2008 at a Lackawanna, New York, steel plant left him a broken man.

“It’s absolutely shocking that a case like this is in court in 2012,” his lawyer said in his closing argument. “It should be viewed as atrocious and intolerable in a civilized society.”

An eight-member jury unanimously found ArcelorMittal and some of its executives responsible and awarded $25 million in damages, most of it punitive. The steel giant, which had argued in court that it had taken reasonable steps to stop the incidents, was found liable for allowing a “hostile work environment” and “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” the BuffaloNews.com reported.