The facts go back to 2018, but the process won by Shannon Phillips has just ended in Philadelphia (USA).
She made the giant Starbucks collapse. Shannon Phillip, former regional director of Starbucks in Philadelphia (USA), has just won a lengthy legal battle against her former employer by paying the crucial $25 million in damages.
The reason for the quarrel? He was fired in 2018 after an incident involving two black men at one of the company’s offices. And as reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer, the New Jersey federal court actually ruled that she was dismissed because of her white complexion.
In detail, two black men had entered a Starbucks in downtown Philadelphia to wait for their colleague. At the time, an altercation broke out when one of them asked to use the facility’s restrooms, but was refused because he was not drinking.
Bad mood for Strabucks
In the end, Starbucks employees had to call the police, who arrested the two men. A few hours later, they are finally released because they have not committed a crime. But the incident sparked controversy against Starbucks on social media, and video of the incident went viral.
Very bad publicity, of course, for the company that decided to close its thousands of cafes across the country for a day to sensitize its teams to racial prejudice. Since then, Starbucks had also changed its rules on toilet access, which is now open to everyone, consumption or not.
Defended by an African American colleague
Also, and this is where the litigation begins, Shannon Phillips, in charge of the regional sector where the toilet controversy took place, was fired a month after the events. Two years later, in 2020, she filed a lawsuit against her former employer because she assumed so fired because of the color of their skin.
Statements corroborated by Paul Sykes, director of Starbucks in downtown Philadelphia and African American. Argument he therefore recently repeated in court, which wondered why the company had fired Shannon Phillips, even though he himself had called the police…
In the end, when Starbucks tried to justify its decision by citing “the limits” of Shannon Phillips in her position as regional director, she failed to convince the jury and was ordered to pay $25.6 million in damages.