EEOC, Sun Chemical Pressed by Circuit on Bias Case Jury Charge

An Eighth Circuit panel on Wednesday probed the EEOC and Sun Chemical Corp. on whether a lower court used the correct jury instruction during the agency’s race harassment trial for a Black plant worker.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says a theory of liability in its 2023 suit was that the ink and pressroom products manufacturer failed to prevent a coworker from directing a racist slur and other hostility at Bryan Banks. Sun knew the same coworker had previously subjected the only other Black employee at the company’s Kansas City manufacturing facility to similar harassment and chose to ignore it, ...