A Multnomah County jury on Monday awarded $1 million to Rose Wakefield, who claimed a Jacksons Food Stores’ employee racially discriminated against her in 2020.
“I feel vindicated,” said Wakefield. “There’s really no amount of money to accept that type of behavior from anyone. But the million dollars, it sends a message.”
Wakefield claimed the gas station attendant, Nigel Powers, ignored her request for service after she pulled into the business on Town Center Drive in Beaverton. Powers “ignored” Wakefield and assisted other customers despite her requests, according to the lawsuit.
Before Wakefield left the station “she confronted Nigel and told him he was wrong to treat her that way. Nigel responded, ‘I don’t serve Blacks,’” according to her lawsuit.
After Wakefield complained to the company, a district manager told Wakefield in a letter that they did not have an audio recording of the interaction.
Cory Jackson, the president of Jacksons Food Stores, said in a statement to KATU that the company disagrees with the ruling.
“After carefully reviewing all facts and evidence, including video surveillance, we chose to take this matter to trial because we were comfortable based on our knowledge that the service-related concern actually reported by the customer was investigated and promptly addressed,” Jackson said. “As such, we respectfully disagree with the jury’s ruling because our knowledge does not align with the verdict.”
Greg Kafoury, an attorney for Wakefield, claimed the company fired Powers after it “papered” his file with complaints of using his phone while on the job.
“They wrote him up four times for talking on his cellphone on the job. In the year and a half there, he had never been accused of that. But all of a sudden, four times in 30 days. And then they fired him after they papered the file. This shows that they knew that he had done exactly what Rose Wakefield had accused him of,” Kafoury said.
Jackson added in his statement that the company provides training to its employees in order to create a safe shopping experience for customers.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination of any kind. We serve everyone; this is core to our people mission and our policies and something we are committed to acting upon every day,” Jackson said.