An epic court battle between Tyson Foods and employee John Hithon endured for 14 years, two jury trials, three circuit court of appeals rulings and a Supreme Court opinion. In August, the 11th Circuit's fourth ruling in the case may have finally put a controversial end to the racial discrimination suit saga.

Hithon accused the company of racial discrimination in promotion decisions. In 1995, a supervisor named Thomas Hatley at the Tyson chicken processing plant in Gadsden, Ala., chose a white employee from another plant for shift manager over Hithon, an African-American who already worked at the Gadsden plant.

Tyson said the plant was performing poorly and management wanted to hire someone from outside. Hithon claimed he was qualified for the job and passed over because he was black. As part of Hithon's case, he claimed Hatley called him “boy” in a racially derogatory manner–a claim that took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ordered the Circuit to look more closely at context in which the supervisor used “boy.”