Judge Rejects Suit Accusing Japanese Firm of Ethnic Bias

A Latino worker who sued her Japanese employer alleging racial discrimination and harassment lost her case Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Judge Barbara A. Meiers refused to reconsider her earlier ruling which said that Marlena Cervantes’ allegations against Nippon Express USA Inc. did not constitute racial discrimination or retaliation.

“What we have is a handful of incidents spread over a period of several years, 1993 to 1999, with nothing at all to point to a racial or retaliatory animus,” Meiers held in her nine-page, June 12 decision, which became final after Monday’s hearing.

Cervantes, 51, who has worked for the company’s Torrance office since 1984, had accused the company, among other things, of treating her differently from its Japanese employees because of her ethnicity.

She was required to punch a time clock and was publicly reprimanded when she was late for work or made mistakes, while Japanese employees with similar seniority were not, Cervantes charged in her suit. She also alleged that her supervisors lashed out at her as a retaliation against her prior complaint against the firm.

Meiers said she could see how Cervantes viewed the situation as she did, but that she had failed to offer “sufficient hard evidence” of “race based or retaliatory animus.”

Nippon Express spokesman Steve Seiler said the judge’s action vindicates the company. This and “voluntary dismissal” of several claims against the company in another case “supports our belief that Nippon has acted properly,” he said.

Michael C. Smith, attorney for Cervantes, had urged the judge to reconsider the June 12 decision, contending that the jurist had put an “excessive burden of proof” by requiring his client to produce “hard evidence of race based or retaliatory animus.” Smith said he would consider appealing the ruling after consulting his client.

Last year Cervantes and another employee, Jun Ho Chang, of Korean descent, sued Nippon Express--after earlier lodging complaints--accusing the company of harassing them because of their ethnicity. Chang settled out of court for an undisclosed sum and left the company. Cervantes settled her suit, remained with the firm, but subsequently had it reinstated.

Yet another suit against the company, brought by the widow of a Korean employee who killed himself after alleging workplace discrimination, is pending in federal court. Junko Lee’s suit accuses Nippon Express, a worldwide shipping firm, of discriminating against her husband, Myung-Sub “Mike” Lee, because he was Korean. The company has called her charges “baseless.”