Davidson News

Davidson News

Fired Starbucks Manager: To Receive An Additional $2.7 Million In Damages In A Racial Discrimination Case

Fired Starbucks manager to be compensated an extra $2.7 million.

Fired Starbucks Manager: To Receive An Additional $2.7 Million In Damages In A Racial Discrimination Case (Photo: The Globe and Mail)

Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee company, has been ordered to compensate a former worker for additional racial discrimination damages totaling $2.7 million. The fired Starbucks manager was previously granted $25.6 million in a lawsuit for wrongful termination after a jury found that her termination in 2018 was motivated by her race.

After the high-profile arrests of two Black men at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia in 2018, a fired Starbucks manager claimed that she and other white employees had been treated unfairly. 

A judge has ordered Starbucks to pay the fired Starbucks manager an additional $2.7 million after she was previously granted more than $25 million.

After a jury in New Jersey determined that race was a deciding factor in Phillips’ termination, in violation of federal and state anti-discrimination rules, Shannon Phillips, the fired Starbucks manager, won $600,000 in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages in June.

The US District Judge Joel Slomsky also ordered Starbucks to pay Phillips, the fired Starbucks manager, an additional $2.73 million in lost wages and tax damages on Wednesday, according to court records, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. 

READ ALSO: Warning! These Nashville Neighborhoods Are Dangerous!

In April 2018, a business manager in Philadelphia dialed 911 to report two Black men who were hanging out in a coffee shop without placing an order. 

After being cleared of all charges, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson were eventually released. 

The regional manager of operations at the time, Phillips, the fired Starbucks manager, was not involved in any arrests that took place in Philadelphia, southern New Jersey, or elsewhere. Nevertheless, she claimed in her lawsuit that she was forced to put a white manager who was also unrelated on administrative leave for justifications she knew to be bogus.

In her case, Phillips, 52, the fired Starbucks manager, claimed that she was let go less than a month after objecting to the manager being put on leave due to the commotion.

According to the lawsuit, the company’s justification for suspending the district manager, who was not in charge of the store where the arrests took place, was the claim that Black store managers received lower pay than white managers. Since district managers had no say in employee compensation, according to Phillips, the argument was absurd.

The lawsuit claimed that Starbucks was taking steps to punish white workers who worked locally in an effort to persuade the public that it had adequately handled the incident.

In response to the arrests, Starbucks’ lawyers claimed that the fired Starbucks Manager, Phillips’ dismissal was due to a need for greater leadership inside the organization.

Starbucks is also being asked to pay $1.4 million in legal costs from 2018 through 2023 by the fired Starbucks manager’s attorneys.

In exchange for a symbolic $1 from the city of Philadelphia and a promise from officials to launch a $200000 program for aspiring entrepreneurs, the two men signed an agreement.

READ ALSO: Car Insurance In North Carolina Faces A Rate Hike

Leave a Comment