‘Knew He Was a Racist’: Federal Judge Refuses to Toss Black Employee’s Lawsuit After White Boss Allegedly Mocked His Blackness and Repeatedly Used the N-Word
A federal judge denied a motion by a Pennsylvania technology company to dismiss race discrimination claims brought by a Black employee, finding he had provided sufficient evidence of his white supervisor’s daily racist remarks and threats.
John Phillip Catalfamo alleges in his complaint filed last year that his employer, The Stereoshop in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where he worked as an electronic systems integrator on high-end audio and video systems, had subjected him to racial discrimination and a hostile work environment soon after he was hired in June 2023.
Catalfamo said things went well at his new workplace for the first two weeks, but once his boss and coworkers, who are white, found out that he was biracial, they began making racially offensive comments, according to his lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania in November 2025 (and obtained by Atlanta Black Star).
Supervisor Allegedly Used Racial Slurs and Daily Harassed Employee
Justin Mazon, his supervisor and a part-owner of the company, allegedly directed and repeated daily racially derogatory comments to and about Catalfamo, the lawsuit says.
That included referring to a Black driver as a “f—king ni—er” while Catalfamo was riding with him, and frequently using that epithet in the workplace. He called Catalfamo “EBN,” short for “el blanco negro” (white negro) on a near-daily basis and stated that “Black people steal things.”
Mazon admitted that he “knew he was a racist,” and referred to TV mounting hardware as “Obama ears” because “they’re big and black,” and making numerous disparaging remarks about Black actors being given roles on TV and film.
Mazon also engaged in targeted intimidation and unfair treatment, the complaint says, frequently following Catalfamo around, micromanaging his work, trying to physically intimidate him, and otherwise creating a racially hostile environment.
He allegedly encouraged others to engage in the same racially discriminatory conduct, the lawsuit claims.
Catalfamo says he reported Mazon’s conduct to other owners of the company and requested reassignment, but they took no corrective action.
Meanwhile, Mazon continued to have Catalfamo accompany him on job assignments “for the purpose of further humiliating and harassing Plaintiff because of his race, including calling him “EBN” on a near daily basis,” the lawsuit says.
After sustaining an on-the-job injury when he fell out of a company vehicle on April 24, 2024, tearing a calf muscle, Catalfamo was unable to work at full capacity, per a physician’s order. Two weeks after the injury, he told his employers he intended to file a workers’ compensation claim.
Worker Says Company Fired Him After Injury and Discrimination Complaints
Soon after, he was fired by Mazon, who told Catalfamo to empty his company vehicle because he was coming to retrieve it, which Mazon did.
The closeness in time between his complaints of racial discrimination and telling his supervisors about his disability and intent to file for workers’ comp and his firing serve as evidence of causation for his claim of retaliation, the lawsuit argues.
Catalfamo says he was not offered light duty or alternative work prior to his termination or during the workers’ comp proceedings that followed.
Attorneys for The Stereo Shop asserted several months later that Catalfamo was never actually terminated. The lawsuit counters that claim by arguing that after he was fired, Catalfamo was never asked to return to work, never placed on the schedule, and was never paid, beyond workers’ comp benefits.
The complaint also alleges that the defendants, who include ConnectedLife Designs (The Stereo Shop’s parent company) and Mazon, threatened to sue Catalfamo to recover the healthcare premiums they paid through June 2024 if he filed discrimination charges against them.
Worker Says Company Sought to Intimidate Him
The lawsuit says that threat to sue him over the healthcare premium costs was “designed to intimidate Plaintiff into dropping his racial discrimination claims” in the complaint he filed with the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission in October 2024, a precursor to the lawsuit.
Catalfamo seeks a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages for loss of front and back pay, benefits and earning capacity; harm to reputation; emotional distress; and humiliation.
The defendants filed a partial motion for summary judgment in November to dismiss the counts related to racial discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation in violation of federal civil rights law on the grounds that Catalfamo had failed to allege that “but for race, he would not have suffered” adverse employment actions, including termination, because he had also pled disability discrimination.
In an employment discrimination case, Plaintiffs cannot make a “mixed motive” argument showing multiple independent causes of harm under Section 1981 of 42 U.S.C, the defendants contended in their brief supporting the motion.
Judge Finds Allegations of Daily Racist Conduct Sufficient to Keep Case Alive
In denying the defendants’ motion on July 21, U.S. District Court Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan rejected that argument, writing that “even though the complaint pleads some retaliation based on disability, that doesn’t negate causation. There can be multiple ‘but-for’ causes.”
The judge opined that in racial discrimination cases where federal courts dismiss for failure to plead “but-for” causation, “typically the allegations of racial discrimination are weak or disconnected from the termination decision. For example, these cases involve a few stray remarks (which wouldn’t be actionable) or involve racial discrimination that is entirely disconnected from the termination. Not so here.”
“In contrast, Plaintiff pleads that, on a daily basis, his supervisor referred to Black individuals by the “n-word,” called him “el blanco negro” (or, for short, “EBN”), admitted he “knew he was racist,” referred to TV mounting hardware as “Obama ears” because “they’re big and black,” proclaimed that “Black people steal things,” and denigrated Black actors.
“This all was directed to Plaintiff or in front of him,” the judge wrote. “These are more than stray remarks, as pled. While there aren’t detailed allegations as to the precise timing of the comments relative to the termination, the allegations that are part of the retaliation claim are strong enough to support a causal link here and create an inference of pretext for all the claims —for example, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants threatened him if he filed a discrimination claim. All of this together is sufficient to plead ‘but-for’ causation.”
Judge Ranjan concluded his order by noting that while the plaintiff had pled “enough” to show causation, “discovery will be helpful in sorting much of this out.”
A case management conference before Ranjan is scheduled for Aug. 21, when the parties will likely map out a discovery schedule and deadlines for future pleadings.