New Jersey
Jury awards $25.6 million to white Starbucks manager fired after the arrests of 2 Black men
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — Jurors in federal court have awarded $25.6 million to a former Starbucks regional manager who alleged that she and other white employees were unfairly punished after the high-profile arrests of two Black men at a Philadelphia location in 2018.
Shannon Phillips won $600,000 in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages on Monday after a jury in New Jersey found that race was a determinative factor in Phillips’ firing, in violation of federal and state anti-discrimination.
In April 2018, a Philadelphia store manager called police on two Black men who were sitting in the coffee shop without ordering anything. Phillips, then regional manager of operations in Philadelphia, southern New Jersey, and elsewhere, was not involved with arrests. However, she said she was ordered to put a white manager who also wasn’t involved on administrative leave for reasons she knew were false, according to her lawsuit.
Phillips said she was fired less than a month later after objecting to the manager being placed on leave amid the uproar, according to her lawsuit.
The company’s rationale for suspending the district manager, who was not responsible for the store where the arrests took place, was an allegation that Black store managers were being paid less than white managers, according to the lawsuit. Phillips said that argument made no sense since district managers had no input on employee salaries.
The lawsuit alleged Starbucks was instead taking steps to “punish white employees” who worked in the area “in an effort to convince the community that it had properly responded to the incident.”
During closing arguments on Friday, Phillips’ lawyer Laura Mattiacci told jurors that the company was looking for a “sacrificial lamb” to calm the outrage and show that it was taking action, Law360 reported. Picking a Black employee for such a purpose “would have blown up in their faces,” she said.
Starbucks denied Phillips’ allegations, saying the company needed someone with a track record of “strength and resolution” during a crisis and replaced her with a regional manager who had such experience, including navigating the aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, Law360 reported.
Phillips’ attorney, however, cited earlier testimony from a Black district manager, who was responsible for the store where the arrests took place, who described Phillips as someone beloved by her peers and who worked around the clock after the arrests.
In an email to The Associated Press, Mattiacci confirmed the award amount and said the judge will consider awarding back pay and future pay, as well as attorney’s fees. Mattiacci told the New Jersey Law Journal that she will seek about $3 million for lost pay, and roughly $1 million on her fee application. Starbucks declined comment Tuesday.
In the April 2018 incident, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson were arrested in a Starbucks coffee shop near tony Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia shortly after the manager called police to report that two men were refusing to either make a purchase or leave the premises. They were later released without charges.
Video of the arrest prompted national outcry and led the current CEO of Starbucks to personally apologize to the men. The company later reached a settlement with both men for an undisclosed sum and an offer of free college education. The company also changed store policies and closed locations across the country for an afternoon for racial-bias training.
The two men also reached a deal with the city of Philadelphia for a symbolic $1 each and a promise from officials to set up a $200,000 program for young entrepreneurs. The Philadelphia Police Department adopted a new policy on how to deal with people accused of trespassing on private property — warning businesses against misusing the authority of police officers.
New York
Bayer reaches $6.9 million settlement over Roundup claims
NEW YORK (AP) — Bayer, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, has agreed to pay $6.9 million to settle allegations by New York’s attorney general that its Monsanto unit made false and misleading claims about the safety of the weedkiller Roundup.
The sum comes on top of the billions of dollars Bayer has already paid to settle lawsuits claiming Roundup, one of the world’s most widely used herbicides, causes cancer.
The lawsuit by New York Attorney General Letitia James focused on advertising by Monsanto, which was acquired by Bayer in 2018, saying Roundup “won’t harm anything but weeds” and does not threaten the health of animal wildlife.
James said those claims breached a previous settlement New York state reached with Monsanto two decades ago, in which Monsanto agreed to stop making unsubstantiated claims regarding the safety of Roundup products containing glyphosate.
“Pesticides can cause serious harm to the health of our environment, and pose a deadly threat to wildlife, including pollinators and other species vital to agriculture,” James said in a statement. “It is essential that pesticide companies — even and especially the most powerful ones — are honest with consumers about the dangers posed by their products so that they can be used responsibly.”
Bayer, which insists that Roundup is safe to use, said it was “pleased” to resolve the litigation. The company noted that the state’s legal claim focused on advertising practices, not on health risks to humans, “and made no findings regarding the safety of Roundup products and no scientific conclusion that they have caused harm to the environment including pollinators or aquatic species.”
The company said the attorney general had relied on outdated scientific studies in bringing the claim.
Glyphosate has been the subject of scrutiny and scientific debate for years. The France-based International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World Health Organization, classified it as a “probable human carcinogen” in 2015.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found in 2020 that the herbicide did not pose a health risk to people, but a federal appeals court in California ordered the agency last year to reexamine that ruling, saying it wasn’t supported by enough evidence.
The millions of dollars that Bayer and Monsanto will pay to the New York attorney general’s office will go toward remedying the impacts of environmental toxins or pollution on pollinating insects and aquatic species.
The settlement also requires the companies to immediately remove or discontinue any advertisements that represent Roundup products containing glyphosate as harmless, nontoxic or free from risk to wildlife.
