Plaintiff wins harassment case but no damages

PORTLAND – A Muslim employee of Jordan’s Meats Inc. can claim victory in his federal lawsuit alleging that he was subjected to illegal racial and religious harassment, but he is walking away empty-handed.

After a six-day civil rights trial, jurors agreed that Abdul Azimi was harassed but found that he was not entitled to money damages from the company.

Azimi’s lawyer, John Lemieux, said he was confounded by the verdict and is exploring options for appeal.

“If this verdict means what it says, it’s quite troubling,” Lemieux said. “It doesn’t send a very good message about the value of his dignity and emotional well-being.”

Azimi testified that he complained to management about steady harassment from co-workers at the now-closed plant, which included finding a threatening letter in his locker, his boots in a toilet and his pockets stuffed with pork, which he is barred from eating under Islamic dietary law.

Management circulated a letter warning employees that racial harassment would not be tolerated, but Azimi said that failed to stop the abuse.

Jurors agreed that Azimi had been harassed and that Jordan’s Meats knew or should have known about it. But they found that he failed to prove he was damaged physically or emotionally. “We find that incomprehensible,” Lemieux said. “There was a lot of harassment there, a lot of indignity.”

The company’s lawyer read the result differently.

“They found this happened but it wasn’t that big a deal,” Lawrence Winger said. “There was also evidence that [Azimi] was treated pretty well.”

Azimi, 37, came to the United States as a refugee from Afghanistan in the 1980s. He was hired by Jordan’s in November 1999.

He filed a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission in 2001. Later that year he was fired for poor attendance. He now works as a house painter.