Waukeen McCoy argued before the California Supreme Court in In re Marriage Cases.
Waukeen McCoy argued before the California Supreme Court in In re Marriage Cases.
Waukeen McCoy argued before the California Supreme Court in In re Marriage Cases.
The women are got kicked off the Napa Valley wine train filed a multi-million lawsuit Thursday. Anne Makovec has details on the claim of racial discrimination.
What started as a joyous ride through wine county Saturday afternoon turned into a “humiliating” experience for 11 African American women, who said they were booted off the Napa Valley Wine Train for laughing and talking too loud. I’m really offended to be quite honest,” said 47-year-old Lisa Johnson, who was among Saturday’s group. “I felt like it was a racist attack on us. The women have since been given a full refund by the train company, but continue to seek a public apology.
Eleven women from the book club “Sistahs on the Reading Edge” boarded a Napa Valley scenic wine train, laughing and smiling. Shortly afterward, they were escorted off the train by police. The reason? Their laughter was too loud.
A group of women, who claim they were kicked off a Napa Valley Wine Train for “laughing while black” have filed an $11 million dollar racial discrimination lawsuit against the train company. The Sistahs of the Reading Edge book club, who are mostly black, said they had decided to sue, not for the money, but to raise awareness that racism is still rife across American society. Lisa Renee Johnson, a member of the book club said, “We feel it is really important for us to speak up about this issue."
A group of women who filed a $11million racial discrimination complaint after being removed from a train during a wine tour have reached a settlement.
The 11-strong party, which included 10 African-Americans, were ordered off the Napa Valley vintage trip last August after other passengers allegedly complained they were being too loud. They filed a lawsuit asking for $1m each after claiming they were humiliated and discriminated against by staff who told them several times to lower their voices.
Their lawyer yesterday revealed they have come to an 'amicable settlement' six months after filing the lawsuit at the U.S. District Court in northern California.
Waukeen McCoy, who did not disclose the terms of the settlement, said: 'We hope that other businesses learn from this case and implement diversity and sensitivity training for employees.'
Train company officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
The women, who are members of a book club called Sisters on the Reading Edge, boarded the train in Napa on August 22.
They claimed they were having a good time, laughing and chatting with other passengers when they were approached by the train manager, who asked them to lower their voices.
The manager reportedly also returned a second time and warned the women that they would be removed from the train.
Their women were finally escorted off the train when it reached St Helena. They were met by police from the Napa Valley Railroad.
The company refunded their $124 fares and also provided a vehicle to pick the women up to transport them back to Napa - but the women insisted they had not done anything wrong.
Their complaint said: 'African-American adults are more likely to be shushed at, stared at and kicked out of places where white people perceive that they do not fit.'
The lawsuit also accused the company of defamation and libel for publishing an inaccurate social media post describing the women as being verbally and physically abusive to other passengers.
The post, which also said it was 'necessary' to get police involved, was later removed.
Two of the women claimed they were fired from their jobs because of the defamatory statement made by the train company, according to the complaint.
Before the lawsuit was filed, Anthony Giaccio, chief executive of the company, issued a public apology along with a pledge to offer staff diversity training and host the women as guests on the train.
The free future trip for themselves plus 39 friends in a private car would have been worth more than $6,200, according to fare prices at the time.
But the women said publicly the response was not sufficient to erase the humiliating experience of being forced off the train and met by police.
The company's actions prompted widespread anger on social media.
One witness, only known as Danielle from Seattle, wrote: 'I watched in disbelief as staff harassed a group of people who were merely drinking wine and laughing.
'I'd like to think it wasn't a racially motivated act but given the fact that other, non-black guests were behaving in the same way and not removed, I can only conclude that it was discrimination.'
The train has run as a tourist attraction since 1864 and offers dining services to passengers as the antique train cuts through scenic vineyards, the company says on its website.
On Saturday, a group of black women boarded a luxurious wine train in Napa Valley, California. Their journey ended prematurely, as they were ousted following complaints that they were laughing too loudly.
This past Saturday morning, 12 women, including an 83-year-old grandmother, boarded the Napa Valley Wine Train to enjoy an 18-mile tour through wine country while sipping local varieties and nibbling gourmet cheese. The women are members of a book club called Sisters of the Reading Edge and had been planning this trip since November.
Lisa Renee Johnson, a member of the club, posted photos on Facebook and explained that she and her friends had been enjoying the ride, the wine and the company but were soon “humiliated” when a train employee informed them that other passengers had complained that they were too loud. According to Johnson, the group quieted down but was then told they were too loud a second time and were eventually escorted off the train and met by officers.
It appears that one white female passenger in particular had a problem with the group.
Johnson told SFGate.com that she flippantly remarked, “This isn’t a bar.”
Johnson posted a picture of the flippant passenger on Facebook, with her own response in the caption: “We are a group of 12... if we all laugh at the same time it’s loud! When we get to St. Helena they are putting us off the train.”
The book club ladies were all refunded, but later The Napa Valley Wine Train wrote on Facebook that the women were relocated because of “verbal and physical abuse towards other guests and staff.” This statement was soon after removed from the business’s page.
Johnson told SFGate that the whole encounter was humiliating and “I felt like it was a racist attack on us. I feel like we were being singled out."
Since Saturday, their story has been shared online under the hashtag #LaughingWhileBlack and the company’s Yelp profile has been flooded with horrendous reviews.
Jennifer B, a white passenger who boarded the train in 2005, like many Yelp reviewers commenting on the account believes that the ousting was likely racially motivated.
“I was on the dome car with my cousin,” Jennifer explains on her Yelp review. “We drank. A lot. Laughed, stumbled down the stairs to use the bathroom and licked our plates. We were never even glanced at.” She wonders if she “walked on that train with a group of my white friends and laughed and drank would I have been escorted off?”
Members of a book club who said they were kicked off the Napa Valley Wine Train in California for “laughing while black” have agreed to a confidential financial settlement with the train company.
The 11 women – 10 black and one white – had sued for $11m for racial discrimination after they were kicked off the train because of their “offensive laughter”. Their expulsion from the train, last August, sparked widespread anger on social media with the hashtag #LaughingWhileBlack trending across the country.
The women of The Sistahs on the Reading Edge book club, who had said they were suing not for the money but to raise awareness that racism is still rife in America, have accepted an undisclosed sum in return for withdrawing the case.
The terms of the confidential settlement prevents the women, who had toured national TV studios in the wake of the incident , from talking about the case to the media and does not include any formal acceptance of wrongdoing by the train company.
Waukeen McCoy, a prominent Bay Area civil rights lawyer who represents the women, said his clients were “very happy” about getting the case resolved even though they will not have their day in court.
Asked why the women, ranging in age from their 50s to 85, had decided to settle the case rather than proceed to court , McCoy said: “That’s what happens when you go to court, you get money.”
“Filing a lawsuit promoted a lot of attention to these issues, obviously when there’s a settlement in exchange for dismal [they are no longer able to talk about it],” he said. “The parties are very happy about getting the case resolved. I think they have proved their point.”
McCoy said he hoped the publicity generated by the case would encourage the Wine Train and other businesses into tackling racism and increase diversity training.
Lisa Renee Johnson, the de facto spokeswoman of book club and who was one of the members kicked off the train, said settling the case was “in the best interests of all parties involved” and said proceeding to court would have been beyond the financial means of the book club.
“In the end it made sense for both of us to settle the case,” Johnson said. “I don’t think it would have made a difference to dance it out in the courtroom. The case has got a lot of attention without going to court.
“I still believe we can be change agents, [and] I don’t think I have to go to court to do that,” Johnson said. “Just because we agreed to settle the case, I will not stop what I am doing [raising awareness of racism]. I want to be a change agent and promote healing.”
The Napa Valley Wine Train, which is now under new management, did not respond to requests for comment.
The previous chief executive of the train company, Tony Giaccio, had apologised to the women and conceded his company was “100% wrong” in its handling of “this regrettable treatment of our guests”. But maintained that the ejection of the women was not racially motivated.
A 10-year-old boy slid off a slide and onto the concrete at a waterpark in Dublin, California, in May 2017. The boy sustained injuries to his back, legs and arm, according to the family's attorney.
When the women in the Sistahs on the Reading Edge book club were thrown off a train touring Napa Valley wineries last August after they were laughing loudly, accusations of racial bias, a hashtag and headlines soon followed. So did a lawsuit, claiming millions in damages. Now the matter has been settled in mediation, and the women want to move on.
One of the women, Lisa Johnson, of Antioch, Calif., said Wednesday that she could not discuss financial details of the settlement that was reached through private mediation last Thursday with the company, the Napa Valley Wine Train. “The matter was resolved on terms acceptable to all parties last week,” Ms. Johnson said.
The group of 11 women, 10 of them black and one white, filed the lawsuit two months after the episode in August, when the group was escorted off the train for laughing and talking too loudly, then met by police officers at the station where they disembarked. The confrontation went viral and inspired the hashtag #LaughingWhileBlack, where people shared stories of racial bias, particularly that encountered while traveling. The group sought $11 million in damages from the company after two of the women claimed they had lost their jobs as a result of the fallout, The San Jose Mercury News reported.
Since the news of the settlement, Ms. Johnson, an author and life coach, said that people have been supportive on social media, and that the book club has seen more requests to join than usual. But she has also noticed an uptick in racially charged comments directed at the group on social media. In an email, she shared an example of some of the posts left on her public Facebook page: “Good old ghetto behavior — have you no shame? Can’t you control yourselves?” the post read.
“We all have biases,” Ms. Johnson said, adding that "finding the courage to behave differently is the conversation” many Americans should be having.
The Napa Valley Wine Train, which did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday, claimed last August that it was not racial bias but “acute insensitivity” that motivated staff members to remove the women from the train. A spokesman for the company, Sam Singer, said then that passengers are removed around once a month. The wine train company found itself backtracking after a Facebook post that accused the women of physical and verbal abuse turned out to be wrong and was deleted.
Ms. Johnson said that the book club was looking forward to returning to normal. She said the group meets on the fourth Sunday of every month and plans a yearly visit to Napa Valley. Another jaunt on the wine train is not in the works, however.
“I think we’re going to stick to limousines as our designated driver,” Ms. Johnson said.
A group of predominantly black women kicked off the Napa Valley Wine Train last August, settled an $11 million racial discrimination case against the company for an undisclosed amount last week.
Waukeen McCoy, the attorney representing the women, told the San Jose Mercury News, the woman reached an “amicable” settlement last Thursday. The settlement amount will remain confidential, according to McCoy.
The group of 11 women boarded the Napa Valley Wine Train on Aug. 22 to celebrate a birthday and discuss a book. The group said instead their trip was cut short, and the women were escorted through six train cars and greeted by police in the Napa Valley town of St. Helena.
"We were treated like we didn't belong there, and we paid our money just like everyone else," Lisa Renee Johnson told KTVU in August. "If they cannot accommodate groups, they should not take our money as a group."
Women kicked off Napa Valley Wine Train file $11M discrimination suit
The women, many of whom are members of the Sistahs on the Reading Edge book club, said they suffered personal and professional consequences, and two of the women lost their jobs following the incident.
The group alleges that they were repeatedly told to "quiet down," although staff said nothing to white passengers who were being just as loud, if not louder.
Shortly after the incident, the company posted on Facebook that the women were removed “following verbal and physical abuse towards other guests and staff.” The post was deleted, but the women said the damage was done.
Following the incident, the company apologized to Johnson and the group, promised to implement enhanced sensitivity training, Sam Singer, a spokesman for the company, said in an August interview.
A group of mostly black women who filed an $11 million racial discrimination lawsuit against the Napa Valley Wine Train have reached a settlement in their case.
A total of 11 women, 10 black and one white, were escorted off the Napa Valley Wine Train last August, and into police custody, after management said they “received complaints” about loud noises coming from one of the cars.
“It was humiliating. I’m really offended to be quite honest,” Lisa Johnson, one of the women in the group, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
The women’s attorney, Waukeen McCoy, said the precise settlement amount is confidential.
Within a few short hours, the controversy had fueled a fierce social media reaction and the hashtag #LaughingWhileBlack began trending on Facebook and Twitter.
Some social media users called for a boycott of the Wine Train.
“It felt like it was a racist attack on us. I feel like we were being singled out,” Johnson said of the incident.
“When someone is removed from a train, they have to be dropped off at a station, and our policy is if someone is let off the train we’ll stand by. We keep them safe until someone can get them,” said Chief Jeff Hullquist of the Napa Valley Railroad Police Department said.
Napa Valley Wine Train “received complaints from several parties in the same car and after three attempts from staff, requesting that the group keep the noise to an acceptable level, they were removed from the train and offered transportation back to the station in Napa,” said spokeswoman Kira Devitt in a statement in response to the incident.
The Napa Valley Wine Train attempted to reconcile the incident after forcing the women off the train. Johnson and her group were reportedly offered a refund.
“They knew they were out of place,” Johnson said, adding that the only thing she want is a “public apology for the humiliations they caused to us as professional women.”
LOS ANGELES – The ex-girlfriend who lost her lawsuit accusing NBA star Derrick Rose and two friends of raping her appealed the verdict Thursday on the grounds that damning testimony should have been excluded and other evidence should have been admitted at trial.
Jurors cleared the Knicks point guard and his friends last month in Los Angeles federal court after they testified that the woman was coherent and willingly engaged in sex with them during an evening get-together at Rose's rented mansion in Beverly Hills and again early the next morning at her apartment in August 2013.
The woman had been seeking $21.5 million in the suit that claimed the men gang raped her at home while she was incapacitated from booze or drugs and unable to consent to sex.
"We combed the records, looked at the transcripts and I think the judge misapplied the rape shield law and, in doing so, abused his discretion," the woman's lawyer, Waukeen McCoy, told The Associated Press.
Rape shield laws limit or prohibit evidence of a victim's past sexual history to be introduced in a case, though there are exceptions to the rule.
McCoy said the judge should have excluded testimony by the Knicks point guard and his friends who said the woman willingly engaged in sex with them earlier in the evening at Rose's house because it was irrelevant to the later incident.
The woman denied having sex with the men at the mansion. She said she drank shots of tequila by the pool, felt drugged and went home to her apartment, where she vomited and passed out.
She said she awoke in the early morning to find the three men assaulting her in her bedroom.
Jurors said they found the woman's account hard to believe and didn't think there was enough evidence to support her claims.
Los Angeles police have an open investigation into the woman's claims. The Associated Press does not generally name people who say they are victims of sex crimes.
Rose's lawyers have asked the judge to award $70,000 in court expenses because the defense prevailed at trial. In a court filing, his attorneys said they expected an appeal "which will be meritless, frivolous, and sanctionable."
Lawyers for Rose did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Derrick Rose was found not liable in the civil case alleging him of gang raping a woman. The case was full of terrible twists and turns including Rose admitting he didn’t know what consent was or that the woman actually consented to sex. Then the judge basically congratulated Rose and wished him luck on his season. But this took the cake…
Derrick Rose posing for pictures with the jurors who just acquitted him for rape. This is a disgusting reminder of how hard it is for women to get fair trials in sexual assault cases. We weren’t the only people who noticed…
LOS ANGELES — A jury heard pointed closing arguments on Tuesday in a lawsuit accusing Derrick Rose and two friends of raping a woman in her apartment three years ago.
The woman’s lawyers portrayed the encounter this way: Rose, the N.B.A. star who was acquired by the Knicks this summer, and two longtime friends broke into the apartment and raped her. The defendants’ team insisted the men were welcomed in for consensual sex.
The woman’s lead lawyer, Waukeen McCoy, called the three men “sexual deviants,” while one of Rose’s lawyers referred to him as “one of the nicest young men I have met.”
The eight members of the jury will decide which side of the story they believe when they begin deliberations Wednesday. The woman sued for more than $21 million in damages, though no amount was stipulated on Tuesday.
Lawyers for each side repeatedly used two-word mantras during their final remarks in a trial that has lasted two weeks. McCoy maintained that the defense was trying to “slut-shame” the woman, degrading her for sexual activity. The woman testified earlier in the trial that she had been incapacitated by alcohol and possibly drugs, rendering her unable to grant consent.
Mark Baute, a lawyer for Rose, called the woman’s case a “fake suit,” saying her claims of pain and suffering were “a hoax and a joke.”
The two sides painted different pictures of the relationship between Rose and the woman, who dated for about 20 months but separated about a month before the encounter at her apartment. McCoy indicated that the woman had regarded their connection as serious, while Baute portrayed it as “purely sexual in nature.”
McCoy said, “She could not understand how a person she dated for a year and a half and who cared for her could take advantage of her while she was highly intoxicated.”
The other defendants, Randall Hampton and Ryan Allen, said during testimony that they had sex with the woman for the first time one night in 2013 at the Beverly Hills house where all three men were living temporarily.
There were also differing accounts of who had initiated the encounter early the next morning at the woman’s apartment. The woman said she did not recall sending them text messages before passing out in her bed. The men’s lawyers asserted that the messages were intended to invite the men over and that the clear wording in the messages was evidence of sobriety.
McCoy also brought up Rose’s wealth, alluding to Rose as “the 1 percent.” He added, “He is not above the law, and he should be treated like everyone else.”
Baute countered by saying that “the only reason we are here is because it’s Derrick Rose and she wants some of his money.”
Baute boiled down the evening and early morning in 2013 to “20-somethings doing what all 20-somethings do all over the country.” He referred to Rose, 28, as “a kid.”
McCoy responded by saying “no one has that much sex” voluntarily, referring to his client.
Baute also suggested that the woman’s lawyers were subtly using terminology that hinted at racial stereotyping. The defendants are African-American, and the accuser is Latina.
McCoy, who is African-American, reacted to the charge with a simple “Wow.”
Rose will miss his fifth straight exhibition game Wednesday night and, depending on how quickly the jury reaches a decision, might be absent from the Knicks’ preseason finale on Thursday.
He could enter the regular season, which begins next Tuesday, with only one game played as a Knick.
On Friday in Los Angeles, Derrick Rose took the stand in the civil rape trial brought by his ex-girlfriend. His ex, the anonymous Jane Doe, had broken down in tears when she testified earlier in the week about what happened, and now it was Rose’s turn to explain how he –and his two childhood friends, Ryan Allen and Randall Hampton — had been given consent to have sex with her on the night in question.
Despite his attempts to clear his name, Rose’s testimony on Friday will do little to repair the damage the civil case has done to his persona in the eyes of the public, especially when considering how his defense team has publicly shamed her in the lead-up to the case. Here’s what went down, by way of the Associated Press:
It started with a morning text message from the woman saying Rose was the reason she “wakes up horny,” including a photo of herself in her nightshirt and continued with other texts about sex throughout the day.
Rose said Friday he surmised that those “horny” text had triggered consent from that point on, and that was only reinforced for him by their sexual history, sex acts she engaged in with him and his personal assistant that night at his house and an invite hours later to her apartment.
“I was assuming that all of us going over there that she wanted to have sex with all of us,” Rose testified in a matter-a-fact demeanor.
Rose’s account stood in stark contrast to the blurry night Jane Doe remembered in her own day-and-a-half testimony earlier in the week. The Knicks’ new point guard was called to the stand as a hostile witness by the accuser’s lawyer on Friday in an attempt to authenticate that he was never given consent for the group sex that took place in her bedroom later on the night in question.
Remember, Rose admitted he didn’t know the definition of consent in a previous deposition. But his story of what happened is filled with behavior that’s not in line with the gentle, unassuming facade he’s shown to the public during his NBA career and it continues the tawdry turn the case has taken.
Rose said the only time the woman said, “Stop” was after she let them in her apartment and they all headed for the bedroom together.
“She told us, ‘One at a time,'” he said. He and Hampton waited on the sofa while Allen was inside.
The woman testified she never let the men in her place and remembers waking to see them all in her bedroom. She recalled Allen on top of her at one point and, at another, Rose pulling her to the side of the bed as she tried to roll off.
Rose said he never received any text from the woman telling him she wanted to have sex with him and the two others. But he had assumed from what had transpired and the fact she had never told him no.
“In my mind, she consented every time we had sex,” he said. “Why wouldn’t she do it that time?”
Attorney Waukeen McCoy suggested Rose had no remorse about the night.
“I’m sensitive to it,” Rose replied, but added, “I feel I didn’t do anything wrong.”
That wasn’t all.
Rose claimed he hadn’t seen his ex since they broke up months previously, but he invited her over for drinks that night. She came with a friend and had a shot or two of tequila before becoming — as Rose alleged in his testimony — sexually aggressive, which he said turned him off. He claims he went to his room at this point, and rejected further attempts from the plaintiff to engage in sexual congress. It was then, Rose said, that a friend removed her from the room.
About 20 minutes later he said he walked outside and saw his friend, Hampton, having sex with her by the side of the pool. Rose said she pulled him over to join them initiating oral sex, but he says he broke away and returned to his bedroom. Rose also testified that Jane Doe was acting a bit abnormally, but he didn’t think she was drunk.
When accuser’s lawyer asked Rose if he thought she was after his money, he said “Not at that time.”
But Derrick’s defense team has repeatedly painted Jane Doe as a gold digger looking to profit from the relationship, with her disputing those claims by saying “I didn’t wish him any harm, I wanted him to be accountable.”
Doe didn’t report the alleged rape to police at the time it occurred and filed the civil suit two years later. There’s currently an active criminal investigation.
After a day and a half of jury selection, the Derrick Rose civil trial finally made its way today to opening statements. According to reports from the courthouse, things got intense almost immediately. Jane Doe’s lawyer Waukeen McCoy gave a very graphic description of the alleged gang rape, the New York Post’s Julia Marsh reported, saying the three men “took turns raping her” while she went “in and out of consciousness.”
McCoy went over several parts of narrative that Doe’s legal team has discussed before: She got drunk, and possibly drugged, while hanging out with Rose and his friends, then went home and passed out. Rose and his friends came over and raped her. McCoy added that one of the co-defendants “went twice” with Doe but can’t remember what order the men went in, Marsh reported. Doe told her roommates and a coworker what happened but didn’t go to the police, McCoy told jurors, because “she was embarrassed.”
Lawyers for Rose and his co-defendants, friends Randall Hampton and Rayn Allen, were much more aggressive, immediately trying to leverage the fact that there were no black members of the eight-person jury. During jury selection, Mike Baute went straight at the jury and tried to ask them a series of questions about their sex lives (also via the Post’s Marsh):
His inquires including asking women “If your daughter came home with a black man, would that be OK?” and “Does a fact pattern involving three men having sex with a a woman offend you?”
The intense probing caused members of the jury pool to laugh nervously and shoot shocked stares at each other.
But they were spared having to answer if they ever used hook-up apps like Tinder or Bumble, with the judge scolding Baute: “Counsel, that is inappropriate.”
During their opening arguments, Baute and Mike Monico portrayed Doe as a gold digger who was not drunk when Rose and his friends went over to her apartment. They continued a line of attacks they’d used before the trial began, with Baute comparing the alleged rape to a lottery ticket, and Monico calling the victim’s allegations toward Rose and the other two defendants.“horrible.”
Knicks point guard Derrick Rose walked into a full-court press Thursday — arriving at his rape trial just as his accuser was testifying against him.
The Los Angeles courtroom stirred when the NBA star showed up roughly 45 minutes after the 30-year-old woman took the stand.
The woman dropped her chin and stared at her lap.
Rose, 28, took a seat beside his lawyers and picked up a pen and pad.
Lawyers say Derrick Rose violated gag order in rape trial
“Did you feel like you’d been drugged?” her lawyer Waukeen McCoy asked moments later as she was recounting the lead-up to the encounter.
“Yes,” she said. “I never felt like that before.”
It was Rose’s first appearance at the blockbuster trial that kicked off Wednesday.
The woman filed a $21.5 million federal lawsuit in August 2015 claiming Rose and two pals had gang-raped her two years earlier.
The woman filed a $21.5 million federal lawsuit in August 2015 claiming Rose and two pals had gang-raped her two years earlier.
Derrick Rose thinking exoneration and not a settlement
In between sobs, she offered a hazy account of the trio having their way with her on Aug. 27. 2013, as she lay on her bed too drunk to understand what was happening.
The night began at Rose’s Beverly Hills mansion where his accuser showed up with a friend — and a “sex belt” — and drank herself into a black hole.
But Rose’s lawyers later pressed her, getting the woman to admit that she’d lied in a text to Rose — fabricating the story about a trip to a sex store because she was bringing the sex belt and wanted him to think it was new.
“Yes, I wasn’t going to the store. I heard of the store, but there was no store I was going to,” she testified.
Mixed rulings for Knicks guard Derrick Rose before rape trial
The woman broke down in tears numerous times while on the stand, Rose's lawyers grilling her for graphic details of the alleged sexual assault.
“At any point did you say leave?” Rose’s lawyer Mark Baute asked the woman.
“I don’t recall sir,” she said.
“At any point did you say, ‘Get out”?” he asked.
Derrick Rose's odd choice of words: ‘I do penitentiary workouts’
“I don’t recall,” she said through tears, breaking down crying.
Once the session ended and the jury and judge left, Rose stood and cracked a smile.
His lawyer slapped him on the back, and he loosened up and laughed while chatting with his co-defendants before they all left the room in good spirits.
“If the belt doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” defense lawyer Michael Monico was overheard joking to the group.
As the woman’s lawyer, Brandon Anand, left the courtroom, he was asked what he thought of Rose and the defense team smiling and seemingly engaging in a congratulatory huddle.
"If that's what it is, I think it's miscalculated," Anand said.
Rose and the woman had dated off and on for nearly two years, but hadn’t seen each other in months.
After catching a cab home the night of the alleged assault, she vomited in her bathroom, then passed out in her bed still wearing her black dress, she said.
“I tipped over into bed,” she said. “The room was spinning.”
The woman said she recalled only “flashes” of what happened after Rose and his pals — Randall Hampton and Ryan Allen — showed up in her bedroom.
“I remember (Rose) was undressed from the bottom and he was at the edge of my bed," she said. “He was pulling me toward him.
“I was trying to get off the bed,” she added. “I just felt like I would throw up. I just felt dizzy.”
The woman said Hampton and Allen also preyed upon her as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
“I just felt weak,” she said. “I felt sick.”
The woman recalled being confused when she awoke at 7 a.m. and realized her dress was bunched up around her neck and lubricant covered her body.
“I just was trying to figure out how I ended up like that,” she said.
She said she confided in one of her roommates and her boss at the real estate firm where she worked. But she didn’t report the alleged sex assault to police for nearly two years because she feared the repercussions.
“I was scared and I was embarrassed,” said the woman, breaking down as she spoke.
She testified a day after Rose’s lawyer said she willingly had sex with the trio at the basketball star’s home — and then welcomed them into her Los Angeles apartment for another turn each.
“There was no gang rape,” lawyer Mike Monico said. “There was no rape at all.”
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 2 — The nation's largest wholesale baker was ordered Wednesday to pay $120 million in punitive damages to black workers who said they suffered racial discrimination at a Wonder Bread plant.
THE DAMAGE AWARD came two days after a jury ordered Interstate Bakeries Corp., the Kansas City, Mo.-based company that produces Wonder Bread, Twinkies, Home Pride and Hostess Cupcakes, to pay $11 million in actual damages to 21 workers at the San Francisco plant. The judge cut that amount to $5.8 million on Wednesday.
The plaintiffs stood and applauded after the award was announced in San Francisco Superior Court. "Thank you, Jesus!" one exclaimed. Others hugged the jurors.
"I'm numb. This is definitely way beyond my wildest imagination," said Charles Wright, 52, a former deliveryman. Lawyers for the bakery said they would appeal.
"We are disappointed that punitive damages were awarded," their statement said. "The facts of the case do not support awarding any damages."
Not all of the jurors agreed with the verdict, either.
Christopher Keating, a San Francisco State University student, did not award any damages during the trial's second phase.
"I didn't find there was a preponderance of the evidence for any of them," he said.
Only nine of 12 jurors are required to reach a verdict under California civil law.
Jury foreman Francisco Ortiz said the workers were deserving of the verdict.
"These people were treated wrong," the local electronics worker said. "I think we did the right thing here."
NINE-DAY DELIBERATIONS
The jury found that the company acted with malice and oppression toward 17 of the 21 plaintiffs; the 17 men and women will share the punitive award. All 21 share in the actual damages awarded Monday.
The bakery said it would ask the judge to reduce the damages awarded because some of the allegations, which date back more than 30 years, occurred when Ralston Purina owned the plant.
The jury spent nine days deliberating after two months of testimony about racial slurs and other indignities suffered at the hands of co-workers.
Theodis Carroll Jr., 34, a former machine operator, testified that co-workers called him "boy" as well as common racial epithets. And Wright said he was denied Martin Luther King Day off, even though white workers were allowed to take days off to see the San Francisco Giants.
Howard Jones Jr., a former route salesman, was put on light duty after being hit by a drunken driver, but the company demanded that he sweep the parking lot, he said. "I refused. I was treated like I was at the bottom," he said.
The attorney for a man charging an East Bay K-Mart with AIDS discrimination has turned down an offer to settle the case for a payments -- one nickel short of ten thousand bucks. Attorney Waukeen McCoy said he rejected the $9,999,95 offer by the giant corporation because of his client's severe trauma. "He's continuing to suffer substantial trauma because of this incident," McCoy told the Bay Area Reporter.
Aksel Dirkzwager, the Nicaragua-born plaintiff, was shopping with his four-year-old son at the popular Hayward store for a Mother's Day present for his wife and other items on May 11, 1996. According to the federal court lawsuit, he was escorted from the store and threatened by a K-Mart security guard after a cashier noticed a blister on Dirkzwager's right index finger and went into hysterics when he told her he might have AIDS, after he used her pen to write a check.
The cashier placed the pen on the check stand and refused to hand it to Dirkzwager. After he had signed his check for the items, Dirkzwager attempted to hand the cashier the check and the pen he had borrowed. "She appeared to be frightened to touch either of these items," the suit claims.
Dirkzwager, who has since tested negative for HIV, was concerned about possible exposure to the virus at the time of the incident, which he mentioned. According to the lawsuit, the unidentified cashier became "extremely agitated" and began screaming at him.
"Why didn't you tell me that you had AIDS before you used my pen? You contaminated my pen and I already touch it," the cashier allegedly screamed.
According to the lawsuit, the cashier left her work station, paged the K-Mart manager, and said over the public address system that "someone in my line has AIDS and he touched me."
Dirkzwager was then ordered to leave the store, escorted from the premises, and allegedly threatened by a security guard.
McCoy said Dirkzwager's son suffered nightmares after the public scene, was out of school for a week because of the trauma, and is still showing confusion over the incident.
"He still asks about the items he picked out from K-Mart and asks why he wasn't able to purchase them with his father," he said.
A controversy over evidence in the case, including McCoy's demand for a copy of a potentially damaging statement by the yet-unidentified clerk, is scheduled to be heard in U.S. District Court next Wednesday, May 28.
McCoy told the B.A.R. he would wait until he was able to depose the security guard, and determine whether K-Mart represented him in the case, before a decision would be make about the legal action to take against him for the alleged abuse of authority.
lawsuit filed last week by a pre-operative transgender woman charges her former employer with alleged discrimination and retaliation during her transition period from male to female.
The legal action may have far-reaching implications for giant international engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff, which has ties to various government agencies.
Danielle Ryan, 44, filed suit Wednesday, March 29, in Sacramento County Superior Court, claiming harassment, gender discrimination, failure to maintain a work environment free of harassment, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and breach of contract.
Ryan, who lives in Sacramento, said she was employed at the firm for over 10 years and consistently received outstanding performance reviews. She claims that only after her transition in February 2005 did she suffer "pervasive harassment from co-workers and supervisors" and "was threatened with termination, demoted to part-time status and wrongly forced to leave the company."
"When I let them know I was transitioning, they sent me home from work the same day," said Ryan.
Her attorney, Waukeen McCoy, of San Francisco-based McCoy and Associates, said, "This lawsuit is important because it will send a message to companies that discrimination or harassment of homosexuals and transgender people will not be tolerated and will not be ignored."
"To discriminate in any way against an employee for undergoing sex reassignment or otherwise failing to conform to stereotypical notions of how a man or a woman should look or act is prohibited by both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act," stated McCoy.
Parsons Brinckerhoff has local offices in San Francisco and Oakland as well as in Sacramento. According to its Web site, the firm has contracts with the city of San Francisco and does business with public agencies such as Bay Area Rapid Transit and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The company also has a hand in construction of the new Bay Bridge.
Ryan began working at the firm's Sacramento office in 1995 as an information technology systems analyst. She said after she began transitioning, supervisors gave her the option to remain with the company for three months "as I am" or to take a part-time job and pay cut.
The situation then escalated to the point that Ryan's doctor recommended she leave the company for health reasons. Today, she is living on a disability.
She said she decided to file a lawsuit in the matter after "seeing the writing on the wall."
"I am tired of seeing people's civil rights stomped on. I would like to see some changes made," she said.
Ryan said she hid her desire to live as a woman and presented herself as a man at work for nine years. During that time, she said she witnessed company-wide animosity toward women and homosexuals. Despite the situation, Ryan had the fortitude to inform supervisors of her upcoming transition weeks in advance. When she eventually came to work dressed as a woman, she was sent home.
"It took a lot of courage for me to be who I am at work," she said. "My appearance has changed but my ability to do my job has not – I simply made a personal choice."
"I hope my lawsuit brings to light the issues transgender people confront in the workplace and the world. My case shows that despite all our freedoms, we still live in a society that attempts to socially and economically marginalize those who are different," stated Ryan.
In the lawsuit, Ryan claims that she had to deal with an "extremely hostile work environment." She said co-workers regularly called her derogatory names such as "faggot," "homo," "he/she," and "it."
Former co-workers and friends refused to work with or recognize Ryan as female, according to the lawsuit.
The situation escalated into jokes about her appearance, a public request to see her breasts, and physical assault after a superior allegedly shoved her into the hallway, the lawsuit contends.
Ryan said she informed both management and human resources about the incidents but the company took no corrective action. Instead, she said workers in the human resources department told her they were tired of dealing with her "transition issues."
Ryan said she was warned the company was going to "hire someone off the street to perform her duties" at work.
McCoy said the lawsuit filed on Ryan's behalf alleges that Parsons Brinckerhoff failed to remedy a hostile work environment once the company was made aware of it. He charged the company with condoning, perpetuating, and participating in the harassment through a campaign of intimidation, retaliation, and abuse.
"Parsons Brinckerhoff knew that Ms. Ryan was being harassed and did nothing to correct it," stated McCoy. "In addition, Parsons retaliated against Ms. Ryan once she complained of the discrimination."
Judith Cooper, director of corporate communications for Parsons Brinckerhoff, told the Bay Area Reporter, "We haven't seen any filings or an actual lawsuit, therefore, we simply cannot comment."
Parsons Brinckerhoff is one of the world's leading planning, engineering and construction management firms for transportation, energy, environmental, and telecommunications projects. The company, founded more than 120 years ago, employs approximately 9,700 workers in more than 150 offices worldwide. Company founder William Barclay Parsons designed New York City's first subway line and constructed a railroad across China.
The company Web site states: "Parsons Brinckerhoff welcomes and respects difference as vital to our success: Our corporate vision can only be achieved through maintaining a diverse working environment."
SAN FRANCISCO (CNN) - Twenty-six minority employees are charging package-delivery company Federal Express with racial discrimination in a state class action suit.
"The evidence in this case shows that FedEx treats its minorities as though the civil rights movement never happened" said Waukeen McCoy, an attorney for the plaintiffs.
The 189-page complaint outlines charges of racial discrimination, harassment; wrongful termination; fraud and violation of the equal pay act, among other claims. It does not specify a dollar amount the plaintiffs are seeking.
"These claims appear to be without merit," FedEx (FDX: up $0.08 to $52.04, Research, Estimates) said in a written response issued Thursday afternoon from its corporate office in Memphis, Tenn.
"Many of the employees involved are currently employed by FedEx and have enjoyed promotions and other opportunities inconsistent with their claims of discrimination. FedEx will vigorously defend this suit."
The company is proud of "its progressive people philosophy and its diverse workforce," the statement said, and many of the employees involved in the lawsuit "chose to bypass" procedures the company has in place to address such concerns.
Lasonia Walker, a plaintiff in the suit, claims she was wrongfully terminated after 10 years with the company. "Coming in as a courier, I applied for positions many times and was overlooked," she said.
Another plaintiff, Rosa Olmos, who still works at FedEx. said, "You just close your eyes to what they're doing to you."
McCoy has launched similar class action suits against Apple Computer and Interstate Bakeries, the makers of Wonder Bread in which there was a $120 million award to plaintiffs. He said he believes this suit is the most "egregious" of any of the discriminations suits filed so far.
McCoy also said he expects the state class action suit to go national, "because we believe that these violations, from our research, are rampant and deep-rooted across the nation."
"With the filing of this lawsuit. our message is to send an unequivocal message to corporate America that discrimination will not be tolerated in any form whatsoever. Discrimination in the work place must stop and it must stop now," he said.
SAN FRANCISCO — Eighteen police officers who were suspended after making a video that parodied life on the force sued the city Thursday, claiming they were victims of racial bias because they were disciplined while four Asian-American officers were not.
The plaintiffs include male and female officers who are black, Hispanic and white, said their attorney, Waukeen McCoy. The four officers who took part in the video but were not suspended are of Chinese descent, as is Police Chief Heather Fong, who also was named as a defendant, according to McCoy.
"They weren't disciplined at all,"McCoy said."There were singled out and treated more favorably, and that is a violation of law."
Two dozen officers were suspended without pay in December after city officials uncovered the 28-minute Christmas party video, which contained depictions of a white officer driving over a black homeless woman and a traffic cop pulling over a woman and ogling her. Mayor Gavin Newsom and Fong quickly condemned the clips, calling them racist, sexist and homophobic.
The suit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, also claims that because of the mayor and chief's public denunciation of the video they suffered retaliation, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
They lawsuit seeks $20 million in damages.
Newsom said Thursday that he could not comment on the specifics of the allegations, but he reiterated that officers were wrong to make the video on city time while"mocking and mimicking the community."The lawsuit"only reinforces my concern about action and accountability,"he said.
SAN FRANCISCO - Four years after thousands of same-sex couples streamed into this liberal bastion to apply for marriage licenses, the California Supreme Court on Tuesday took up the question of whether gay people have a constitutional right to wed.
During more than three hours of arguments from lawyers for and against same-sex marriages, several justices appeared to be skeptical of legalizing the unions, suggesting they see the state's domestic partnerships as marriage in all but the name.
Justice Carol A. Corrigan observed that it might be best to leave the question "to the democratic process" because the perception of same-sex marriages is evolving. She also asked lawyers to show her where the state Constitution addressed same-sex marriages.
"Is it better for this court to decide or the people of California to decide?" Corrigan asked.
Three of the court's seven justices strongly indicated that they would uphold the state law defining marriage as a contract between a man and a woman, one suggested that gays should prevail and the other three asked questions critical of both sides.
The court's extraordinary hearing regarding In re Marriage Cases, S14799, is the culmination of a long legal fight that began when San Francisco issued marriage licenses to nearly 4,000 same-sex couples in February and March 2004. San Francisco's extraordinary move came at a time of intensifying national debate over same-sex marriages after Massachusetts, as result of a historic 2003 court decision, became the only state to legalize same-sex unions.
The court is deciding four lawsuits brought on behalf of nearly two dozen same-sex couples. A trial judge here ruled in favor of same-sex marriages, but a Court of Appeal rejected that decision on a 2-1 vote. Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger argued in favor of keeping marriage an opposite-sex union, and Christian-affiliated groups joined them.
The California high court invalidated the San Francisco marriage licenses in August 2004, but will decide within 90 days whether gay men and lesbians should be permitted to marry in the future.
The hearing attracted an overflow crowd in the courtroom and protesters outside who carried signs, including one that read "Sodomy Is Sin." Hundreds watched the televised hearing from various venues across San Francisco and at City Hall in West Hollywood, with many cheering the lawyers for same-sex couples and booing justices who asked critical questions.
Justice Marvin R. Baxter reminded lawyers that the initiative limiting marriage to unions between a man and a woman was ratified by the voters, and that the state Legislature has given same-sex couples "virtually equal rights except the title" of marriage.
San Francisco Chief Deputy City Atty. Therese M. Stewart told the court that "the name 'marriage' matters." But Justice Ming W. Chin chided: "Doesn't that place rhetoric over reality?"
Chief Justice Ronald M. George and Justice Carlos R. Moreno suggested that the state might have a rational basis for limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples because the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriages.
"Doesn't this just boil down to the use of the 'M-word' -- marriage?" Moreno asked.
"That symbol," Stewart replied, "has deep meaning."
George seemed skeptical of the argument that a ban on same-sex marriages amounted to sex discrimination because the ban "seems to treat males and females equally." But he also peppered the opponents of same-sex marriages with skeptical questions and stressed that the court had the authority to overturn long-established laws and voter initiatives.
Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, one of the more liberal members of the court, asked Stewart if the concept of equal protection under the law evolves. Stewart replied that it did.
"Why is this the moment of truth as opposed to 10 years from now?" Werdegar asked.
"We're here today," Stewart told her.
Lawyers in favor of same-sex marriages said a 1948 California Supreme Court ruling that struck down a ban on interracial marriages set a precedent for upholding a fundamental right to marry the person of one's choice. But Baxter appeared incredulous, asking whether anyone really believed that the court back then envisioned same-sex marriages.
"When did same-sex couples acquire the constitutional right to marry?" Baxter asked. When a lawyer for same-sex couples replied that they have long had that right but the state has ignored it, Baxter again appeared skeptical. "So from the day the Constitution was adopted " more than 150 years ago?
Kennard, however, and some of the other justices also expressed uncertainty that a ban on same-sex marriages should be upheld as a matter of tradition.
"Just because there has been a tradition of something or other doesn't mean that that tradition is legally right or constitutionally protected," Kennard observed.
Waukeen McCoy, one of the lawyers arguing in favor of gay rights, said the court appeared to have the view that the plaintiffs were trying to redefine marriage.
Kennard grinned. "You don't know what we're going" to decide, she said.
Kennard noted that the state's domestic partner law makes it easier for couples to end their relationships "whereas it's much harder to get out of marriage." Deputy Atty. Gen. Christopher E. Krueger retorted that some would consider that an advantage.
Glen Lavy, senior counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, which opposes same-sex unions, told the court that the state's laws do not prohibit gays from marrying, just from marrying someone of their own gender. "They are allowed to marry but not allowed to form a same-sex couple and call it marriage," Lavy said.
While the court listened to arguments, both sides in the dispute faced off with banners and sometimes angry exchanges outside.
Ronald Brock of San Diego drove through San Francisco's streets in a red truck bearing an American flag and a mix of religious and political messages, including an image of the burning twin towers in New York City and one of two men embracing, encased in the international circle and slash symbol -- near the words "Truth not Tolerance."
The 69-year-old man said he knew that his message was not well-received.
"Most people give me the middle finger," Brock said. "But I'm here bearing the truth to people who aren't used to hearing the truth."
At City Hall in West Hollywood, where a large banner advertised "Gay Ballroom Classes," a group of about 30 residents and city employees watched the arguments intently on two television screens. Even city affairs seemed to have taken a back seat -- Mayor John Duran sat closest to the television for several hours Tuesday morning.
"They're talking about us," said Duran, who has been in a domestic partnership for nine years. "I sort of feel like a lab rat; they're talking about my life."
Duran said he decided last week to hold the public viewing because of the attention surrounding the arguments in his city.
He estimated that about a third of the city's residents are gays or lesbians.
"I think early on a lot of us had a sense of dread as justices were scrutinizing our side," he said. "Now that they're grilling the other side, there's more levity."
The morning was a particularly emotional one for Tim Thomson, 44, who married his partner of 25 years in Oregon only to see his license nullified by the state Supreme Court there in 2005.
"It's frustrating that we're here," said Thomson, a claims specialist for the city who has lived there for 27 years. "It's a no-brainer for me. I've been with my honey for 25 years, and I should have a right to marry."
Last week a $40 million racial discrimination lawsuit was filed in the Santa Clara County Superior Court against Apple and an Apple employee named Dan Riccio. The suit claims that Apple and Riccio denied an African-American employee promotions, stock options and the company of his co-workers. Late this afternoon MacCentral spoke with the plaintiff's attorney, Waukeen Q. McCoy, Esq. to get some additional details about the case.
McCoy's client, who hasn't been identified by name, was a product engineer at Apple from November 1998 to July 2001. McCoy told MacCentral that the employee had no performance or disciplinary problems on his record, and the performance review prior to his termination rated him above average. The employee had been sent to Tokyo, Japan and Houston as part of his work for the company.
At issue is the employee's decision to bring a friend to the Apple campus, which McCoy claimed was an attempt to help motivate the friend to attend college and improve himself. Shortly thereafter, the employee was suspended; several weeks later he was fired. McCoy described Apple's actions to MacCentral as a pretext for his allegedly racially motivated dismissal.
The suit also alleges that the employee was physically separated from his own co-workers -- relegated to a cubicle that McCoy described as "a significant distance" from the other members of his team. McCoy told MacCentral that the employee was the only person of color in the department.
McCoy said that other members of the same department -- including Riccio, who was the employee's direct supervisor -- brought friends and family to the office with impunity.
McCoy also said that now the suit has been filed, the next step in the case is to collect depositions both from Riccio and human resources management at Apple, to help support the claim of discrimination.
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment for this story.
A group of current and former employees of FedEx Corp. in California filed a lawsuit in California this morning claiming racial discrimination and their attorneys say they will seek to certify a national class action suit which could be tried in federal court.
At a morning press conference today in San Francisco, lead attorney for the plaintiffs Waukeen Q. McCoy announced the lawsuit filed in California on behalf of 26 current and former minority employees of FedEx in the Northern California area.
The lawsuit, which does not name the specific level of damages being sought, contends that minority employees at FedEx are treated differently in terms of hiring, disciplinary action and promotion decisions that limited the number of minority managers at the package delivery giant.
The next step is to get the class certified with the courts in California and to serve the company with the lawsuit, McCoy says.
FedEx officials weren't immediately available for comment.
The plaintiffs in the case the court in California will ask the state courts to determine if they can represent all minorities in the company in the state on the basis of their claims. McCoy says his team will then seek to extend the case to federal court through certification of a similar class on a national level where the case could represent all minority employees at FedEx, whether they have individual complaints or not.
FedEx has often been cited in the media as being one of the best businesses in the country for minorities to work, and lists its minority employee level at about 40%.
The attorneys for the plaintiffs say they believe the case could be one of the larger racial discrimination suits in recent history.
"If this case goes national we think the recovery could be one of the largest, but it could be considered one of the largest because of the size of the company," says Todd Schneider, another attorney for the group.
McCoy and his co-counsels in the case believe that the alleged problems with FedEx are indicative of the entire company.
"Its not just these employees, its employees nationwide and the investigation is still ongoing," McCoy says.
McCoy is well-known for his work in a racial discrimination lawsuit against Interstate Brands Corp. where a jury returned a verdict of $133 million in damages against the maker of Wonderbread.
With annual revenues of $20 billion, FedEx is a global provider of transportation, e-commerce and supply-chain management services. The company offers services through a network of subsidiaries operating independently, including FedEx Express, the world's largest express transportation company; FedEx Ground, North America's second largest provider of small-package ground delivery service; FedEx Freight, a provider of regional less-than-truckload freight services; FedEx Custom Critical, a provider of expedited, time-critical shipments; and FedEx Trade Networks, a provider of customs brokerage, consulting, information technology and trade facilitation solutions.
Still reeling from the passage last month of constitutional bans on same-sex marriage in 11 states, gay rights advocates moved on Wednesday to undo California's prohibition, arguing in a court here that gays and lesbians have a ''fundamental right'' to marry.
Lawyers for the City and County of San Francisco and more than a dozen same-sex couples presented their cases in San Francisco Superior Court, the first step in a lengthy legal process that will determine the constitutionality of state laws that define marriage as being only between a man and a woman. The hearing continues on Thursday.
''The state should not be able to reach into our homes and choose our life partners,'' said one of the lawyers, Waukeen McCoy, who represents six same-sex couples who want to be married. ''It is bad enough when our parents do that.''
Defenders of the state ban, which is based on a law enacted by the Legislature in 1977 and a statewide initiative approved by the voters in 2000, argued against expanding marriage to include same-sex couples. Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office was joined by lawyers for several Christian and conservative organizations that have been active in battles against same-sex marriage.
Though they differed in their reasons, the state and other lawyers argued there was nothing unconstitutional or discriminatory about a law that defines marriage in a manner consistent with tradition and the desire of most Californians.
''The word 'marriage' has a particular meaning to them, and they don't want that meaning to change,'' said Louis R. Mauro, a senior assistant attorney general.
Mr. Mauro added, ''Complex social policies should not be determined in this courtroom'' and ''the public needs to be a part of the process.''
In addressing the 30 or so lawyers from several consolidated cases, the judge, Richard A. Kramer, said the dispute was ''not so much what marriage is about, but who gets to be married and participate in those benefits.''
Judge Kramer could issue a ruling as early as next month, and he predicted it would be appealed, ultimately to the State Supreme Court. Some groups opposed to same-sex marriages have said they would seek a constitutional amendment banning such marriages should they lose in the courts.
The constitutional challenge here is starting much the same way as the one in Massachusetts that led to the legalization of same-sex marriages there. In Massachusetts, seven couples challenged the constitutionality of that state's ban in 2001. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of the couples last year, and in May the state became the only one in the country to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The rulings in the Massachusetts case were cited by several lawyers in court here and in the multitude of briefs submitted to the judge over the last few months.
The dispute in California stems from a series of lawsuits filed after Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco ordered city officials last February to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. More than 4,000 weddings were invalidated in August by the State Supreme Court, which determined that Mr. Newsom had exceeded his authority, but the court did not address the constitutionality of the state laws restricting marriage to a man and a woman.
The court hearing on Wednesday came 10 days before a new state law on domestic partnerships takes effect. Under the law, one of the most far-reaching in the country, couples who register with the state as domestic partners will be granted most of the rights and responsibilities of married couples. On Tuesday, a state appeals court denied a request by opponents of the law to block it.
R. Bradley Sears, executive director of the Charles R. Williams Project on Sexual Orientation Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the close timing of the court hearing in San Francisco and the new domestic partnership law illustrated ''where the state is at'' in the debate over rights for same-sex couples.
''There is majority support for recognition of same-sex couples through something that isn't called marriage, and majority opposition to something called marriage,'' Mr. Sears said.
Mr. Mauro, of the attorney general's office, argued to Judge Kramer that the new law was evidence that California had no intention of discriminating against same-sex couples, a main contention of the lawyers for the city and the same-sex couples. ''California is a leader in affording rights,'' he said.
Shannon Minter, a lawyer for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which represents 12 same-sex couples who have sued the state, said the domestic partnership law was no substitute for marriage. He asked how many heterosexual couples would be willing to trade their marital status for a domestic partnership.
''It is one of the most basic civil rights,'' Mr. Minter said of marriage.
The conservative and Christian groups, some of which also oppose domestic partnerships, took a different approach than the state in arguing against same-sex marriages. Lawyers for two groups suggested that they had no place in California law because marriage was an institution based on procreation.
''This case is not about existing rights,'' said Glen Lavy, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian advocacy group in Arizona. ''It is about creating new rights.''
''The fundamental right to marriage has always been about procreation,'' Mr. Lavy said.
Judge Kramer did not allow television cameras in the courtroom, but that did not damper interest. Cameras were set up in another courtroom, where lawyers made statements and many of the same-sex couples answered questions. At one point, the opposing sides got into a tiff, when a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund asked the couples to move away from the cameras.
''This is a prop,'' the lawyer, Benjamin W. Bull said, pointing at the rows of couples.
''Excuse me,'' countered one of their lawyers, Gloria Allred. ''They are human beings, not props.''
After the Alliance Defense Fund lawyers left, Ms. Allred led the same-sex couples in singing ''We Shall Overcome.''
Eighteen San Francisco police officers who appeared last year in a video of skits that were denounced as racist and sexist by city officials have filed a $20 million lawsuit against the city.
The officers, who worked out of the Bayview Station, alleged that they have been defamed and discriminated against and say authorities excused several Asian officers involved in making the tapes.
The video skits, some of which were made public in December by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Chief Heather Fong, among other things depicted an officer running over a homeless woman and another male police officer pulling over a female motorist and ogling her.
At the time, Fong said the video showed "shameful and despicable acts'' by officers while on duty and immediately suspended two dozen officers. All returned to work after five days without pay, but eight of the officers are still assigned to desk jobs.
The 18 suing officers, including women, African Americans and Latinos, are referred to in the suit as "non-Asian'' or "perceived non-Asian.''
They say Fong and the city acted against them while ignoring four Asian officers -- including one who appears as an Asian gang member on one of the videos -- who were neither suspended nor transferred to desk duty.
"It's clear to me, race was a factor,'' said the officers' lawyer, Waukeen McCoy. "My clients were disciplined and the Asians were not. The department acted toward them more favorably -- they participated in the video and were not treated the same.''
Sgt. Neville Gittens, a police department spokesman, said no one has been disciplined in the case and the suspensions involved were merely procedural. He said any officer who is later cleared of charges is entitled to reimbursement for the unpaid time spent on suspension.
As to the charges about the Asian officers not being singled out, Gittens said the department "does not tolerate any form of discrimination.''
He said the disciplinary investigation is nearing its end.
Mayor Newsom said he was disappointed that the officers filed a lawsuit. "It's unfortunate that they're trying to extract tens of millions of dollars based on actions they took that precipitated the response from the police chief, not the other way around," he said.
Matt Dorsey, spokesman for the city attorney's office, said the officers' suit appears to be without merit.
"It's been a long, difficult time. ... My spirit as a police officer has been crushed,'' said Officer Wendy Hurley, one of the officers who is suing, along with her boyfriend, Andrew Cohen.
Cohen, an amateur filmmaker, made the videos and put them on his Web site after a police captain told him not to show them at the Bayview Station Christmas party.
Cohen said Thursday he has had his pistol taken away and is assigned to desk duty. "We are wasting away as highly paid paper pushers,'' he said.
It shapes up as the most momentous case the court has heard in decades - comparable to the 1981 ruling that guaranteed Medi-Cal abortions for poor women, the 1972 ruling that briefly overturned the state's death penalty law, and the 1948 decision, cited repeatedly in the voluminous filings before the court, that struck down California's ban on interracial marriage.
The arguments on both sides are weighty.
Supporters of same-sex marriage invoke the state's commitment to equality regardless of gender or sexual orientation, the needs of the children of gay and lesbian couples, the persistence of societal discrimination, and legal rights such as freedom of expression, association and privacy.
In defense of its law, the state cites a cultural tradition far older than statehood, the will of the people as expressed in a 2000 initiative, the steps California has already taken toward equal rights for gays and lesbians, and the power of lawmakers and voters to determine state policy.
Beyond those arguments, groups opposing same-sex marriage want the court to justify the state law on moral or scientific grounds, as an affirmation that limiting matrimony to a man and a woman is best for children and society.
A ruling is due within 90 days.
The case combines four lawsuits - three by nearly two dozen couples who want to marry and the fourth by the city of San Francisco, which entered the dispute after the court overturned Mayor Gavin Newsom's order that cleared the way for nearly 4,000 same-sex weddings in February and March 2004.
The suits rely on the California Constitution, which state courts have long interpreted as more protective of individual rights than the U.S. Constitution. The plaintiffs invoke a passage in the 1948 ruling on interracial marriage - the first of its kind by any state's high court - in which the justices recognized a "right to join in marriage with the person of one's choice."
Judge Richard Kramer of San Francisco Superior Court echoed that language in March 2005, when he ruled that the state's ban on same-sex marriage violated "the basic human right to marry a person of one's choice." He also said the marriage law constitutes sex discrimination - prohibited by another groundbreaking California Supreme Court ruling in 1971 - because it is based on the gender of one's partner.
But a state appeals court upheld the law in October 2006. In a 2-1 decision, the court rejected Kramer's findings of discrimination and said California was entitled to preserve the historic definition of marriage while taking steps to protect the rights of same-sex couples who register as domestic partners.
Conservative religious organizations, including sponsors of the 2000 ballot measure that reinforced the opposite-sex-only marriage law, accused the state of making a half-hearted defense of its law and sought to justify it as a pro-family measure. Marriage is for procreation, and children fare best with married fathers and mothers, they argued. They also said the definition of marriage is so deeply engrained in the law that judges have no power to change it.
The coalition of conservative religious groups warned that a ruling against the state law would "fracture the centuries-old consensus about the meaning of marriage."
An opposing assortment of liberal denominations counseled the court against a state endorsement of "the religious orthodoxy of some sects concerning who may marry."
The court also heard from hundreds of organizations representing psychologists, anthropologists and other professions, city and county governments, law professors, businesses, civil rights advocates and social institutions.
The subject was raised with unusual frankness in written arguments by Attorney General Jerry Brown's office, which is leading the defense of the marriage law that Brown signed as governor in 1977.
"One unintended and unfortunate consequence of too radical a change is the possibility of backlash," said Deputy Attorney General Christopher Krueger. Same-sex marriage may someday be legalized in California, he said, "but such a change should appropriately come from the people rather than the judiciary as long as constitutional rights are protected."
Brown said last week he wasn't asking the court to sacrifice principles to politics, only observing that rulings that "ride roughshod over the deeply held judgments of society" can have unintended consequences.
He noted that the court majority swung from liberal to conservative after three of his appointees, including Chief Justice Rose Bird, were unseated in a 1986 election that centered on their votes to overturn death sentences.
"Far worse than any short-term controversy a principled but unpopular decision might engender, an unprincipled, politically based decision of the sort the attorney general seeks will invite and sanction the continued stigmatization and marginalization of lesbians, gay men and their families," said Chief Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart.
But Cass Sunstein, a University of Chicago law professor who is not involved in the case, said concern about public reaction is a legitimate basis for judicial restraint.
Sunstein said he favors allowing gays and lesbians to marry, but fears that such a ruling in California "would have undue influence over the upcoming presidential election, would polarize the country in ways that are not desirable and would short-circuit a continuing process of democratic debate over this issue."
That debate has reached the state Capitol, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed two bills in the past two years that would have legalized same-sex marriage, and it may intensify statewide regardless of the court ruling. Two organizations are circulating initiatives that would write the current marriage law into the state Constitution; one of the measures would also repeal recently enacted laws protecting same-sex domestic partners.
Those laws, which grant domestic partners the same rights to property, finances, child custody and other benefits that spouses receive in California, are also at the heart of the state's case for upholding its marriage law. Brown's office argues that the partnership laws satisfy the state's obligation to treat same-sex couples equally and eliminate any need for judicial intervention.
"Maintaining the long-standing and traditional definition of marriage, while providing same-sex couples with legal recognition comparable to marriage, is a measured approach to a complex and divisive social issue," Krueger wrote in his argument to the court.
"The right to marry compels the state to sanction and support a unique expression of personal commitment, and that personal commitment is not the exclusive province of those who love someone of a different sex," said the National Center for Lesbian Rights, representing 15 same-sex couples who sued to overturn the state's law.
Other issues abound:
-- Whether the marriage law discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, and if so, whether bias against gays belongs in the same category as laws that discriminate on the basis of race or sex, which courts rarely uphold.
-- Whether the 2000 ballot measure, Proposition 22, prohibited state legislators from legalizing same-sex marriage without voter approval.
-- Whether Prop. 22's sponsors and other organizations opposing same-sex marriage have the right to participate in the case on an equal basis with the state, based on their claim that broadening the marriage law would harm husbands and wives.
Over the last five years, with little dissent, the justices have established parental rights for same-sex couples, upheld an adoption procedure widely used by gays and lesbians and outlawed business discrimination against domestic partners.
But in more incendiary cases, the court has upheld the Boy Scouts' right to exclude gays and has broadly interpreted a voter-approved ban on preferences for women or minorities in public contracting.
Few court-watchers expect California to follow the lead of Massachusetts, whose top court - relying on the state's constitution - became the first and only tribunal to legalize same-sex weddings in 2003.
"This is a close case," said Clark Kelso, a professor at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and a longtime observer of the California court. "I don't think they will say anything like, 'Heterosexual couples are better at raising children.' But it's likely that the court will not blaze a trail.
"In cases of doubt," Kelso said, "the court is likely to tilt toward the expressed will of the people."
The proceedings are titled In re Marriage Cases, S147999. Briefs can be viewed at www. courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme/highprofile.
Joyce Kennard Age 66. Former deputy attorney general appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian in 1989.
Marvin Baxter Age 68. Former Fresno attorney and appointments secretary to Deukmejian, who appointed him to the court in 1990.
Katherine Mickle Werdegar Age 71. Former court research attorney appointed by Wilson in 1994.
Ming Chin Age 65. Former Oakland attorney and Alameda County prosecutor appointed by Wilson in 1996.
Carlos Moreno Age 59. Former federal judge appointed by Gov. Gray Davis in 2001. The court's only Democratic appointee.
Carol Corrigan Age 59. Former Alameda County prosecutor appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.
-- City of San Francisco
-- Three separate groups of plaintiffs representing 23 same-sex couples from Los Angeles and San Francisco
AGAINST SAME-SEX MARRIAGE Arguing in defense of the state law that prohibits same-sex marriage:
-- State attorney general
-- A lawyer representing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
-- Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund
-- Campaign for California Families
Remote viewing: The hearing will be telecast live in the Milton Marks Conference Center in the basement of the court building, and also at Hastings College of the Law, 198 McAllister St., first-floor auditorium. Limited seating is also available in the Koret Auditorium of the San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin St.
On cable: The hearing can be seen on the California Channel, a cable channel whose number varies from city to city. The channel is also online at www.calchannel.com. In San Francisco, the hearing will also be shown on SFGTV, Channel 26.
Same-sex marriage legal: Massachusetts.
Civil unions, with most of the rights of spouses under state law: Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire.
Domestic partnerships recognized, with most of the rights of spouses under state law: California, Oregon.
Constitutional amendments outlawing same-sex marriage: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin.
Statutes outlawing same-sex marriage: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, West Virginia.
SAN FRANCISCO —
A 37-year-old transgender man has sued San Francisco and several law enforcement officers, claiming he was beaten and later taunted about his gender identity when arrested last year.
In addition to $25 million in damages, Jeremy Burke of San Francisco -- who is making the transition from female to male with hormones and surgery -- says he hopes the lawsuit will lead to improved sensitivity training for veteran police officers.
The suit stems from Burke's Aug. 13 arrest and his assertions of improper conduct by two San Francisco police officers, a sheriff's deputy and a Housing Authority security guard.
Besides being assaulted, Burke said, he was strip-searched by a female jailer instead of a male, subjected to derogatory comments and thrown a dress in his jail cell. He claims he required medical treatment and suffered from nightmares as a result.
"I hope by filing this lawsuit that we can make some changes to the way the police and sheriff's departments operate so that this never happens to anyone again," Burke said Thursday.
A spokesman for the city attorney's office said the office hadn't received a copy of the complaint and declined comment. The city's watchdog Office of Citizen Complaints, however, reviewed the matter earlier and determined that Burke's claims couldn't be substantiated.
In his suit, Burke said the incident had happened as he was delivering medications to his ill partner, a 67-year-old woman who lives at a Housing Authority complex at 350 Ellis St.
He said he had shown identification but had initially been denied entry to the building by a female security guard, who he said later had shoved him in an elevator. The guard summoned police, who arrested Burke in the apartment of his partner on suspicion of battery, resisting arrest and trespassing.
During the arrest, Burke said, officers grabbed his arms and dragged him out of a chair, punching him in the face, chest and eye and causing internal bleeding that required hospital treatment.
To make matters worse, Burke said, an unnamed female sheriff's deputy strip- searched him in jail, and another jail worker made offensive remarks about his genitals.
A police report on the incident quote officers as saying they grabbed Burke after he raised a fist at one of the officers. Once in jail, the report says, he tried to bite another officer on the arm.
Burke said he had tried to bite the officer to defend himself. He said the officer had been bending his fingers back.
All charges were eventually dropped except the trespassing count, which will be expunged when Burke completes a diversion program, police sources said.
Officers are trained in handling transgender men and women when they are arrested, said Police Department spokesman Jim Deignan.
"I believe (the training) is as adequate as is possible at this time," Deignan said. "We're always open to learning more."
Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Eileen Hirst said jail protocol called for transgender men to be examined by male staff members, and women to be strip- searched by female workers.
Hirst said jail deputies were trained not to make offensive remarks, and if someone did, it would violate department policy.
The suit also names San Francisco police officers Anton Collins and Steve Lee, Deputy Sheriff Edson Veloro and Housing Authority security guard Dorothy Lipkins.
Burke's attorney, Waukeen McCoy, said the lawsuit had been delivered Thursday to city officials.
Transgender rights advocates and city officials said they weren't aware of a similar lawsuit against the Police Department. However, in 1999, a transgender woman, Victoria Schneider, won $750,000 in damages from the San Francisco Sheriff's Department after a federal jury determined that deputies in 1997 had strip-searched her without justification.
Schneider's attorney argued that she had been searched naked while other jail staffers looked on, laughing and making jokes.
Since 1995, all Police Department recruits have had to go through transgender sensitivity training, said Marcus Arana, a member of the Police Commission task force charged with coming up with recommendations for transgender sensitivity training for advanced officers.
Training delves into use of proper pronouns, myths and stereotypes and procedures for booking and detention of transgender men and women. According to a spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Department, deputies -- veterans and rookies alike -- have to go through sensitivity training.
Arana said the task force, assembled in January, was expected to issue recommendations this fall on transgender training for advanced officers.
The nation's largest wholesale baker, maker of Wonder Bread and Twinkies, has been ordered to pay one of the nation's largest racial discrimination damage awards: $121 million to past and present black employees who said they were abused and denied promotions at facilities in San Francisco, Oakland and Santa Clara.
The San Francisco jury verdict ordering punitive damages for 17 plaintiffs Wednesday was in addition to $11 million awarded Monday to the same employees, and four others, for financial losses and emotional distress allegedly suffered while working for Wonder Bread and its parent company, Interstate Brands Corp. of Kansas City, Mo.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stuart Pollak said he planned to cut the $11 million in half because some of the events had taken place before the period covered by the suit, but workers' jubilation was unabated as they celebrated into the evening at a South-of-Market restaurant.
"I feel blessed," said Harold Jones Jr., 43, of Richmond, who was awarded almost $14 million in punitive damages, which he said he would use first to help his family.
"It's not about the money," he said. "It's the idea of trying to get Wonder Bread to change. They refused to change, and they may not change now."
Jones, a former route salesman in Oakland, claimed he had been fired from the company because of his race after he confronted a supervisor who ordered him to sweep a parking lot, even though he was on light duty after a workplace shoulder injury.
Attorney Angela Alioto The jury of 12 sent a message to IBC that "it will not tolerate institutionalized discriminatory practices in San Francisco," said Waukeen McCoy, an attorney for three plaintiffs. Attorney Angela Alioto, who represented the other 18, said jurors had made the award large enough that "it deters all of corporate America."
Interstate Brands plans to appeal, said attorney Kathleen Maylin. The company, which took over the San Francisco bakery from Ralston Purina in 1995, contends workers blamed it for events that took place many years earlier. The suit was filed in 1998, and by law covers actions during the previous year.
"We don't believe there was evidence presented to support the award for punitive damages or for compensatory damages," Maylin said. She also claimed "extensive legal errors" by Pollak, who will hear the company's request to reduce or overturn the verdict.
The San Francisco bakery has a work force as diverse as The City's population, and the company has strong anti-discrimination policies and grievance procedures through its union, Maylin said. Interstate Brands owns 67 bread and cake bakeries from coast to coast.
The plaintiffs, all men, had worked at the San Francisco bakery for as long as 30 years and said discrimination was deeply rooted. Some referred to the plant as the "White House."
They claimed the bakery, and distribution warehouses in Oakland and Santa Clara, no longer hired blacks and did not promote their current 31 black employees beyond entry level — except one who was given a foreman's job that they said no one else wanted.
One worker said he had been called "boy," and others said a racially motivated supervisor had called them "too lazy." Some said black employees were barred from one of the restrooms, an allegation the company denied. Blacks also said they had been told not to meet as a group for fear they'd form a gang.
Response to complaints ranged from brush-offs to retaliation, including dismissal, the employees said.
Maliciousness alleged The jury's verdict Monday found 17 of the 21 employees eligible for punitive damages on the grounds that the company had treated them maliciously. It deadlocked on one plaintiff's award, which will be heard again. Individual punitive damage awards ranged from about $2.5 million to $18 million.
The 18 plaintiffs represented by Alioto, as well as one juror, gathered Wednesday evening at Don Ramon's restaurant on 11th Street, where they drank beer and margaritas, spoke to TV and newspaper reporters and hugged each other. They chanted "green, green, green," and one asked aloud, "Where's Fortune magazine at?"
"We sliced up Wonder Bread in 12 different ways," Alioto announced at the party. Later, she said, "You couldn't write a law that would be as effective as a verdict like this in fighting racism in America. Corporate America needed this verdict."
Willie Wilkerson, a 62-year-old Oakland resident who has been a machine operator in San Francisco for 25 years and whose case for punitive damages was deadlocked, said, "I think it's a step forward for black people." But like his colleagues, he said Wonder Bread in San Francisco, which has no black managers, had a long way to go.
"When you never move up in 25 years, and have Caucasian people getting promoted to foreman in six months, it's got to be skin color," Wilkerson said. "If you're not qualified in 25 years, you're never going to be qualified."
A group of current and former employees of FedEx Corp. in California filed a lawsuit in California this morning claiming racial discrimination and their attorneys say they will seek to certify a national class action suit which could be tried in federal court.
At a morning press conference today in San Francisco, lead attorney for the plaintiffs Waukeen Q. McCoy announced the lawsuit filed in California on behalf of 26 current and former minority employees of FedEx in the Northern California area.
The lawsuit, which does not name the specific level of damages being sought, contends that minority employees at FedEx are treated differently in terms of hiring, disciplinary action and promotion decisions that limited the number of minority managers at the package delivery giant.
The next step is to get the class certified with the courts in California and to serve the company with the lawsuit, McCoy says.
FedEx officials weren't immediately available for comment.
The plaintiffs in the case the court in California will ask the state courts to determine if they can represent all minorities in the company in the state on the basis of their claims. McCoy says his team will then seek to extend the case to federal court through certification of a similar class on a national level where the case could represent all minority employees at FedEx, whether they have individual complaints or not.
FedEx has often been cited in the media as being one of the best businesses in the country for minorities to work, and lists its minority employee level at about 40%.
The attorneys for the plaintiffs say they believe the case could be one of the larger racial discrimination suits in recent history.
"If this case goes national we think the recovery could be one of the largest, but it could be considered one of the largest because of the size of the company," says Todd Schneider, another attorney for the group.
McCoy and his co-counsels in the case believe that the alleged problems with FedEx are indicative of the entire company.
"Its not just these employees, its employees nationwide and the investigation is still ongoing," McCoy says.
McCoy is well-known for his work in a racial discrimination lawsuit against Interstate Brands Corp. where a jury returned a verdict of $133 million in damages against the maker of Wonderbread.
With annual revenues of $20 billion, FedEx is a global provider of transportation, e-commerce and supply-chain management services.
The company offers services through a network of subsidiaries operating independently, including FedEx Express, the world's largest express transportation company; FedEx Ground, North America's second largest provider of small-package ground delivery service; FedEx Freight, a provider of regional less-than-truckload freight services; FedEx Custom Critical, a provider of expedited, time-critical shipments; and FedEx Trade Networks, a provider of customs brokerage, consulting, information technology and trade facilitation solutions.
SAN FRANCISCO – (AP) The nation's largest wholesale baker was ordered to pay $120 million in punitive damages to black workers who said they suffered racial discrimination at a Wonder Bread plant.
The damage award came two days after a jury ordered Interstate Bakeries Corp., the Kansas City, Mo., producer of Wonder Bread, Twinkies and Home Pride, to pay $11 million in actual damages to 21 workers at the San Francisco plant.
The plaintiffs applauded as the award was announced in San Francisco Superior Court. "I'm numb. This is definitely way beyond my wildest imagination," said Charles Wright, 52 years old, a former deliveryman awarded $16.2 million.
Lawyers for the bakery said they would appeal. "We are disappointed that punitive damages were awarded," their statement said. "The facts of the case do not support awarding any damages."
The jury found that the company acted with malice and oppression toward 17 of the 21 plaintiffs; the 17 men and women will share the punitive award. All 21 share in the actual damages awarded Monday.
The bakery also said it would ask the judge to reduce the damages awarded because some of the allegations, which date back more than 30 years, occurred when another company owned the plant.
The jury spent nine days deliberating after two months of testimony about racial slurs and other indignities suffered at the hands of co-workers.
Theodis Carroll Jr., 34, a former machine operator, testified that co-workers called him "boy" and common racial epithets. Mr. Wright said he was denied Martin Luther King Day off, even though white workers were allowed to take days off to see the San Francisco Giants.
Howard Jones Jr., a former route salesman, was awarded a total of $14.9 million. He was put on light duty after being hit by a drunken driver, but the company demanded that he sweep the parking lot, he said. "I refused. I was treated like I was at the bottom," he said.
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 2 –– A California jury awarded $121 million in punitive damages to black employees of Interstate Bakeries Corp. who said they were discriminated against by the maker of Wonder Bread, Twinkies and Hostess Cupcakes.
"The verdict is beyond words," plaintiffs' attorney Angela Alioto said. "My clients suffered terribly, simply because they are African American. I think, however, IBC got the message loud and clear: Discrimination will not stand."
Lawyers for Interstate expressed disappointment with the award and said they will appeal.
"We don't think the evidence supports the verdict, and we believe there were substantial and extensive legal errors," said attorney Kathleen Maylin.
On Monday, the San Francisco County Court jury awarded $11 million in compensatory damages to 21 San Francisco area employees of Kansas City, Mo.-based Interstate.
It also found that Interstate, the nation's largest wholesale baking company, acted with malice toward 19 of the workers, clearing the way for them to receive punitive damages. Today's award covered 17 of the original plaintiffs.
The lawsuit, filed by baking plant workers and drivers, alleged a hostile work environment, lack of promotion and hiring, and name-calling at Interstate's San Francisco bakery and at distribution centers in San Jose and Oakland, Calif.
Among the lawsuit's allegations were charges that black employees were denied the use of certain meeting rooms, denied days off on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and subjected to racial epithets.
Apple Computer has been slapped with a $40 million racial discrimination lawsuit charging that the company unfairly sacked an African-American employee.
Described by the plaintiff's attorney as "one the largest racial discrimination cases in U.S. history," the suit alleges the former employee was denied promotions and standard perks, isolated from co-workers and then fired for a trivial offense.
The suit was filed on Oct. 30 in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
The plaintiff, who did not reveal his name because he is currently looking for work, was an Apple employee from 1998 until he was fired in July this year. He worked as a product design engineer.
The suit alleges the plaintiff was fired after he brought a friend to work earlier this year to encourage him to pursue a college education.
"I think he has a strong case for discrimination and wrongful termination," said Waukeen Q. McCoy, the plaintiff's attorney.
"His white counterparts have not been disciplined or terminated for bringing a friend or family member to campus, and this is a pretextual way for them to get him out of the company," McCoy added. "We also believe he was getting less pay than his white counterparts as well."
After bringing the friend to Apple's campus, the plaintiff was suspended, McCoy said. The company launched an investigation before terminating the employee. He is currently looking for work in Silicon Valley.
McCoy said the employee had no prior problems and had an "above average" work record.
When Riccio took control of the plaintiff's department, he immediately moved the plaintiff into a separate cubicle away from the rest of his group for no apparent reason, McCoy claimed. At the time, the plaintiff said nothing, not wanting to rock the boat, said McCoy.
McCoy has a track record for successfully prosecuting racial discrimination lawsuits. He was the lead plaintiff's attorney in the largest racial discrimination suit in U.S. history: Carroll v. Interstate Brands Corporation.
Interstate Brands, makers of Wonder Bread and other consumer foods, was sued by 15 African-American employees for refusing to hire and promote black employees.
In August 2000, a jury awarded the plaintiffs $135 million. The case was voted "Verdict of the Year" by Verdicts & Settlements Magazine.
McCoy said he would be willing to settle if Apple made a reasonable offer. But Apple has so far failed to respond to letters McCoy has sent, he said.
"I think this is certainly something that corporate America should look at and think twice about doing to someone, singling them out like this," he said.
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment on the case, citing a company policy of not discussing pending litigation.
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