Maldonado v. City of Altus

433 F. 3d 1294

Facts
The City of Altus instituted an English-only policy for its employees. Hispanic employees of the City of Altus sued the City claiming that this policy was discriminatory. The US District Court granted the City’s motion for summary judgment (i.e. ruled in favor of the City without going to trial). The employees appealed.
How it all started:
In the spring of 2002 the City's Street Commissioner, Holmes Willis, received a complaint that because Street Dept. employees were speaking Spanish, other employees could not understand what was being said on the City radio. Willis informed the City's HR Director of the complaint, and she advised Willis that he could direct his employees to speak only English when using the radio for City business. Plaintiffs claim that Willis instead told the Street Dept. employees that they could not speak Spanish at work at all and informed them that the City would soon implement an official English-only policy.
On June 18, 2002, one of the senior employees, Tommy Sanchez, wrote a letter to the HR Director and the City Administrator, Michael Nettles, expressing concerns about the new policy. Sanchez felt that employees had not been given proper notice of the new policy under the City’s Personnel Policies & Procedures Manual and proper procedures were not followed when implementing this policy. Sanchez reported that Willis had told him that Hispanics speak Spanish because of “insecurities” and that Sanchez too would “feel uncomfortable if another race would speak their native language in front of [him]". The letter also requested an investigation into discrimination charges in accordance with the City’s Manual.
In July 2002, an English-only official policy, signed by Nettles, was implemented. English was to be used in all forms of communication (oral and written). Exceptions were during