Yolanda Turner is an African-American female who began her employment with the city and county of San Francisco in 1997. She was employed as a custodian at City Hall and reported to Ricardo Martinez. Ricardo was a middle aged Filipino man who was known for not particularly liking blacks due to his generalization that they all had extremely poor work ethics.
Within Yolanda's first few years of employment, she heard several rumors about how her supervisor treated African-American employees in the past but she paid the gossip no mind. Although this news was discouraging, she remained optimistic and confident that Ricardo would have no reason to treat her any differently from any of his other staff members. What separated her from past employees was that she had a very strong work ethic. Yolanda wanted to be there and took her position seriously. She never took unscheduled time off, she always arrived on time for work, she was an extremely hard worker, and she completed her work early every single day.
Sonny Cornelius, official portrait from .
English: William H. Brown, chairman of EEOC
John H Powell Jr, chairman of EEOCYolanda felt as though her performance was far from satisfactory; she exemplified a stellar employee.
There came a time when Yolanda became pregnant. Although difficult, she continued to work endlessly, day in and day out, until she no longer could. On February 12, 1998, Yolanda gave birth to her daughter, Danielle prematurely. After being off work for just 6 weeks to care for her newborn child, she decided to return to work as planned.
When Danielle was only a few months years old, she became very sick. Yolanda constantly needed to take time off to care for her young daughter so that she could take her to doctor appointments for testing. This continued week after week and Danielle's health began to decline. After several tests were taken, it was concluded...