C&P Headed to Trial Against Starbucks in Race Discrimination Case
On Friday March 25, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the latest attempt by Starbucks Corporation to avoid a trial on claims by C&P’s client Harold Stanley Jackson arising from an incident that occurred in one of its stores in April 2018. According to Mr. Jackson, Starbucks employees racially profiled him, falsely accused him of shoplifting, and shoved him to the ground when he refused to leave the store. Mr. Jackson was rendered unconscious and taken to a nearby hospital by ambulance.
After the close of a lengthy discovery process involving the exchange of documents (including surveillance video) and depositions of several witnesses, Starbucks Corporation moved for summary judgment on the grounds that no reasonable juror could find the company liable. In a meticulous 31-page opinion, Judge Rudolph Contreras held that Mr. Jackson’s claims could move forward. The opinion, among other things:
Cited sworn testimony from the shift supervisor on duty during the incident, who testified under oath that some of the staff believed that the white manager “‘had implicit bias,’ as demonstrated by referring to black employees as ‘ratchet,’ ‘ghetto,’ and ‘savage’ when they did not perform well.”
Quoted testimony by the same supervisor asserting that the other Starbucks employees “were surprised” that Mr. Jackson’s white girlfriend was with him “because ‘she was a white lady . . . she looked all right, and he was a black man, and he looked a little beat up or grungy and they were together.’”
Held that the evidence of racial discrimination “is bolstered by evidence of bias both in Starbucks nationwide” and that particular store, noting that “[a]round the same time as this incident, Starbucks employees in Philadelphia called the police on two black men in an incident the company’s CEO acknowledged as ‘reprehensible.’”
Rejected what the Court called Starbucks’s “primary argument”: that black people cannot discriminate against other black people as a matter of law. Acknowledging “that a shared racial identity may undermine an inference of discriminatory intent,” the court recognized that a shared race “do[es] not foreclose the possibility that an individual might discriminate against someone of their own race.” (Of course, this argument was inapplicable to the actions of the white store manager, “whose actions allegedly contributed to Mr. Jackson’s injuries.”)
Adopted the reasoning of a recent Fourth Circuit opinion that described the nuanced ways in which discrimination can manifest: “[I]t is unlikely today that an actor would explicitly discriminate under all conditions; it is much more likely that, where discrimination occurs, it does so in the context of more nuanced decisions that can be explained based upon reasons other than illicit bias, which, though perhaps implicit, is no less intentional. . . . [I]mposing unique burdens or stereotypical expectations upon an individual based upon her membership in a protected group is illicit discrimination, even though the defendant may not discriminate consistently against every woman or minority under all conditions.” Woods v. City of Greensboro, 855 F.3d 639, 651-52 (4th Cir. 2017).
Became (we believe) the third trial court opinion in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia adopting the test for discrimination in the retail context as articulated in Callwood v. Dave & Buster’s Inc., 98 F. Supp. 2d 694, 704-08 (D. Md. 2000).
Noted that “[t]his is not one of the rare cases in which a plaintiff’s testimony is so undermined by other evidence in the record that the Court can set it aside at the summary judgment stage.”
Acknowledged that, in the context of the D.C. Human Rights Act: “Discrimination on the basis of race and discrimination on the basis of personal appearance are not mutually exclusive, and in some instances may in fact reinforce each other.”
The Court also ruled that several of Mr. Jackson’s other claims (e.g., negligence and battery) can proceed to trial. A status conference is set for April 12, 2022, at which time the parties expect the court to schedule the trial.
Copies of the parties’ briefs, and the evidence on which they rely, may be accessed through Pacer.
Tim Clinton, lead counsel on the case, is the founding partner of Clinton & Peed. Tim is generally known as a trial lawyer who handles cases in a broad range of legal and factual contexts, including complex commercial and contract disputes, civil rights and discrimination cases, personal injury and medical malpractice, and high-profile criminal defense matters. This case marks the latest in a long history of Clinton & Peed’s deep and abiding commitment to the cause of civil rights and equal justice under the law.