Posted August 14, 2003 -- In an increasingly common racial discrimination case, a Black man won a settlement against another Black man for being degraded because of his skin color.

A dark-skinned Black waiter at an Applebee's restaurant near Atlanta alleged that his light-skinned Black supervisor was discriminating against him. To settle the suit, the company paid him $40,000.

Dwight Burch, a former employee, accused his manager at the Jonesboro, Ga., restaurant of repeatedly referring to him as a "tar baby" and "Black monkey" during his three months at the restaurant. Burch also alleged in his suit that his manager told him to bleach his skin and that he was fired when he threatened to report the man to officials at Applebee's headquarters.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission helped settle the "color discrimination" lawsuit, saying that such cases are on the rise. The number of cases involving allegations of skin-tone discrimination jumped from 413 in fiscal year 1994 to 1,382 in 2002, according to the EEOC. About 20 of the complaints filed during that time period have led to lawsuits, while most of the rest have been settled out of court. They currently comprise roughly 3 percent of the 85,000 cases the agency gets annually.