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A federal appeals court has ruled against a Milwaukee man in his lawsuit claiming he was “a victim of racial discrimination and retaliation” while working, for a short time, as a salesman at a car dealership in the city.

This isn’t the first such case filed by Melvin D. Reed, who has filed at least 16 others against Milwaukee-area businesses alleging discrimination, according to the opinion by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In the most recent case, against a Menomonee Falls oxygen tank delivery service that fired him in 2008, Reed lists a total of 31 civil lawsuits filed against businesses, most in Southeastern Wisconsin, filed since 1991.

In the car dealership case, filed against Ewald Automotive, which has several locations in the Milwaukee area, Reed claimed he was given fewer sales opportunities than white salesmen and subjected to racially-charged comments in the workplace.

Reed was fired after two incidents. In the first, he and another salesman threatened each other: The other salesman, during an argument, told Reed to “watch his back,” according to the appeals court opinion, and Reed responded, “Do you want to jump?” In the second incident, Reed was involved in a “chest-to-chest shouting match” with a supervisor and reportedly yelled, “I’ll deck you.”

In the lawsuit, filed under the federal Civil Rights Act, Reed says he approached a fellow salesman and asked for a personal loan. The salesman declined, saying, “Blacks don’t last too long around here,” suggesting that Reed might not be around long enough to pay him back. Reed also alleges he overhead a supervisor saying that “young black men moving out to the suburbs had caused an increase in crime,” according to the opinion.

It noted, “Lost sales commissions would have been a tangible injury,” and pursuable under the Civil Rights Act, but Reed failed to provide enough evidence of lost sales. He said his attempts to obtain information from the dealership were frustrated by the federal judge who originally ruled against him in the case.

The appeals court sided with that original judgment, stating, “A handful of episodes of yelling and stray racist remarks cannot sustain a claim of racial harassment or create an inference that race was the reason for Reed’s termination.”

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