Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Peters’ Bakery

Marcela Ramirez was a longtime employee of Peters’ Bakery (the bakery) (defendant). In 2011, the bakery’s majority owner, Charles Peters, fired Ramirez, resulting in a union arbitration proceeding that ordered Ramirez’s reinstatement. Once Ramirez was reinstated, Charles continued a pattern of harassment and discrimination against Ramirez based on her race and national origin, referring to Mexicans as liars and saying that he never trusted Ramirez’s kind of people. In 2013, Ramirez filed an employment-discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (plaintiff), prompting the EEOC to sue the bakery for violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). On June 30, 2015, while the suit remained pending, Charles terminated Ramirez effective July 3, stating that he did not like her. When Ramirez’s union representative spoke to Charles shortly thereafter, Charles said that he fired Ramirez for his own mental health and because she had cost him a lot in lawyers. The EEOC promptly applied for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to prohibit the bakery from terminating, harassing, or disciplining Ramirez pending a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent the same conduct for the duration of the suit. In a declaration supporting the TRO request, Ramirez stated that if she lost her job, she and her husband would be unable to pay their mortgage and their children’s education expenses. Also, the family would lose their health insurance. The court considered the TRO application.