Fired on the First Day of Work

Murnaghan Fellow Ejaz Baluch filed a brief today in the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on behalf of Robel Bing, an employee who was fired on his first day of work as a customer care representative after his new supervisor learned that he is African-American.  Mr. Bing did not have a lawyer in proceedings before the U.S. District Court, which dismissed Mr. Bing’s complaint.  The district court accepted Brivo Systems’ explanation that it had fired Mr. Bing based on an internet search the supervisor conducted on Mr. Bing’s first day of work, through which the supervisor found a Baltimore Sun article stating that Mr. Bing had been a witness in an investigation of an incident of Halloween “celebratory gunfire.”  However, such a search was not part of Brivo Systems’ employment background check, which Mr. Bing had passed. Instead, Mr. Bing’s supervisor decided to do the internet search immediately after seeing that Mr. Bing is African-American.

Ejaz’s opening brief in Bing v. Brivo Systems, LLC is available here.