Vindication, at Long Last : Ex-Employer Must Pay Homeless Man $1.25 Million for Racial Harassment

Chances are pretty good that Niles A. DeGrate was the only homeless man sipping champagne Friday on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

He had just found out that a judge awarded him $1.25 million for racial abuse directed at him in his last job, and DeGrate felt like celebrating in his lawyers’ office.

“I am still kind of numb,” said DeGrate, 52, who has been living in public buildings and on city streets around Los Angeles for much of the last two years.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Florence Marie Cooper ruled Friday that Eaton Corp. must pay DeGrate $1.25 million for failing to correct a climate of racial harassment at the company’s El Segundo and Valencia offices.

DeGrate, who has degrees in law and biochemistry, said he was living fairly comfortably in suburban Woodland Hills, playing golf and tennis, when his life fell apart. He was fired from his job as an administrator in 1990 after being subjected to racial insults and intimidation.

The judge’s ruling Friday cited an episode that began when a secretary dumped leftover food on DeGrate’s desk. He complained to a personnel manager, who counseled the secretary and told DeGrate to be more tolerant. Two days later, trash again was dumped on his desk.

Several snickering white employees also handed him a phony application for “Jesse Jackson’s staff,” DeGrate contended in his lawsuit. The application had a section asking “Yo’ Mama’s Name, Yo’ Daddy’s Name (if known).” Under auto, it listed Cadillac or Lincoln over the categories “Financed” or “Stolen.”

Under place of birth, the application gave the following choices: Free Clinic, Alley, Zoo, Car, Colonel Sanders and Popeye’s Chicken. “It is not necessary to attach a photo,” the application said, “since we all look alike.”

DeGrate complained to the company about the insult, and company officials testified that they counseled two of the employees involved. In a letter to the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the company acknowledged the fake application “did have some racial overtones that might be considered offensive.’ ” But the company said DeGrate, who worked for Eaton for two years, was fired from his job because his performance declined.

Other forms of harassment cited in the judge’s ruling Friday included food being thrown through the sunroof of DeGrate’s car, and testimony by a customer that he had heard DeGrate called a “nigger” at a meeting and another employee refer to blacks as “your people” or “your kind.”

The customer also testified that he had spotted on company property a neo-Nazi flyer containing derogatory comments about African Americans and Jews.

Steven Eisenberg, general manager of Eaton’s Aerospace Controls Division in El Segundo, said Friday he was unaware of the ruling and refused to comment. Two lawyers who represented the company in the case did not return telephone calls from The Times.

Cooper, in her ruling, found “overwhelming evidence that the plaintiff was subjected to an environment which was permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule and insult, sufficiently severe and pervasive to alter his working conditions.”

DeGrate said Friday that his life fell apart after he lost his job. Although his marriage had broken up before his job troubles, he said he developed feelings of inadequacy after the firing that made it difficult for him to relate to his teen-age children.

About two years ago he slipped into homelessness, he said. “It was very demoralizing and humiliating. . . .” DeGrate said. “I just lost it pretty much.”

The lawsuit almost failed to survive long enough for a verdict. DeGrate was acting as his own lawyer until three days before the trial. He had survived a defense motion for summary judgment, but he knew he needed help.

A law student at UCLA, where DeGrate was sleeping in a library, recommended he call Robert M. Ball and Shelly D. McMillan, Beverly Hills lawyers who had counseled black law students in the past.

“He walked into the office with three boxes of stuff three days prior to trial,” Ball said.

Ball said DeGrate was persistent and credible. He had written the lawsuit “sufficiently” enough to litigate, and he and McMillan decided to take the case.

DeGrate was suing on the grounds that Eaton wrongfully terminated him in 1990 and allowed a hostile work environment to flourish despite his frequent complaints to management. The jury could not reach a verdict and Judge Cooper was asked to issue a ruling.

Cooper found sufficient evidence that DeGrate was fired fairly, but noted that his performance had deteriorated sharply because of the racially hostile work environment.

DeGrate has been staying recently in a motel arranged by his lawyers--and provided with clean clothes--to have him available for court. He was headed out Friday night for a steak dinner and to think about the future, which for now is on hold pending appeal of the ruling or a settlement.

“I feel vindicated in one respect and now I think I can really get some rest after five years,” he said.