The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously this week to award $3.8 million to a white city parks worker who alleged he suffered years of abuse and discrimination at the hands of his Latino boss.

A former gardener with the Department of Parks and Recreation for almost 20 years, James Duffy sued the city in 2011 for discrimination, harassment and retaliation based on race and disability. A jury ruled in favor of Duffy in 2014, and the California state appeals court affirmed the decision this summer.

According to court documents filed by Duffy's attorney, the discrimination began in 2001 when Duffy was assigned a new foreman, senior park maintenance supervisor Abel Perez. Perez allegedly began harassing Duffy and making racist remarks, including "I hate white people," the documents show.

Duffy also alleged he was routinely tasked with completing sizable maintenance tasks without any help, while Latino gardeners were provided two assistants, and claimed that he was passed over for promotions by Perez in favor of Latino workers.

The lawsuit also states that in 2004, Duffy slipped and fell on wet cement while on the job, compounding a previous head injury sustained decades earlier. The fall allegedly caused cognitive issues including delayed speech and short term memory loss. His supervisor used this incident to his advantage, Duffy said, by claiming Duffy forgot to complete assignments he was never given.

In an incident later that year, Duffy reported Perez after he was seen taking Duffy's tools from his assigned park. When confronted by his supervisor, Perez "just laughed," according to court documents.

Duffy filed a grievance against Perez in 2005, alleging that his supervisor had used "abusive language" against him during two disciplinary discussions. Perez received a warning from his supervisor that his disciplinary measures were inappropriate, and was reassigned to another district in August 2006, though he still served as an indirect supervisor to Duffy.

Between 2008 and his retirement in 2010, Duffy alleged Perez harassed him several times a week by shouting derogatory terms as he drove past his assigned parks, said he hated "all white people," twice threatened him with physical harm, and threatened to kill Duffy if he reported him to his superiors, court documents stated.

After several additional disciplinary meetings and negative job performance reviews, Duffy tendered his "involuntary resignation," and enrolled in the city's early retirement program in March 2010. In the lawsuit filed against the city in February 2011, Duffy claimed his supervisors "constructively terminated his employment by forcing him to retire."

The city appealed the 2014 jury decision, claiming Duffy's lawsuit violated the terms of his severance package, but the verdict was upheld by the state appeals court.

Duffy's attorney told the Los Angeles Times that his client now looks forward to moving past the case.

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"Our client went through an awful lot of harassment and retaliation.… No one should be treated like that, regardless of your color," Carney Shegerian said. "We're real happy for Jim Duffy and I'm glad he's going to be able to put this behind him pretty soon."

Perez, meanwhile, remains employed with the city and has not commented on the settlement, though he previously denied any allegations of discrimination against Duffy.

Neither the Los Angeles City Attorney's office nor Shegerian responded to Mashable's requests for comment in time for publication.