New Jersey Non-Jew Can Sue Over Anti-Semitic Slurs

Myron Cowher, a truck driver for New Jersey-based Carson & Roberts Site Construction and Engineering, claims he was the victim of workplace discrimination because his co-workers hurled anti-Semitic slurs at him. In a unanimous ruling last week the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed that he should be able to sue his employer for the anti-Jewish abuse he took.

The only odd thing about this case is that Cowher isn’t Jewish!

Cowher claimed he was subjected to a hostile work environment because on the job he had to hear his co-workers tell him things like, “Only a Jew would argue over his hours,” and “If you were a German, we would burn you in the oven,”.

Judge Edith Payne told the court, according to The Wall Street Journal, that if an employee “can demonstrate that the discrimination that he claims to have experienced would not have occurred” if he wasn’t perceived to be Jewish, then the case ought to be heard.

The ruling will dramatically change the way employment law cases are decided in New Jersey. This case shows that the court is going to take a harder look at the treatment an employee endured as opposed to whether that person is a member of a protected class.

Gregg Salka, an associate with the national Fisher & Phillips law firm, noted,

“It moves the focus more towards the discriminatory comments rather than the actual characteristic of the plaintiff,”

The Carson & Roberts Site Construction workers, supervisors Jay Unangst and Nick Gingerelli, admit they teased Cowher with anti-Semitic remarks but that they knew he wasn’t Jewish and that they were just part of a locker room type humor environment. They pointed out that even other workers called Cowher “Bagel-Meister”.

When Cowher’s case was initially heard by the Lower State Court, it was thrown out because Cowher failed to show any proof that his employers thought he was Jewish. The Supreme Court sent the case back to be reheard.