Costco discrimination case headed to jury trial

<p>A special master has ruled that Costco Wholesale Corp. improperly fired a black employee who says he was repeatedly ridiculed and denied a promotion by managers because of his race.</p><p>The decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge E. Clayton Scofield III, issued June 15, means Gavin Alleyne's lawsuit against the Issaquah, Wash.-based chain will go to a jury trial, according to the plaintiff's lawyer, Stephen Camp.</p><p>Alleyne, a 32-year-old University of Georgia graduate student who worked at Costco's warehouse store in Duluth from 1996 to 2001, is seeking more than $300,000 for back pay, future pay and psychological counseling. He also is asking for unspecified punitive and compensatory damages.</p><p>Costco's chief legal officer, Joel Benoliel, said Monday that Alleyne's allegations against the nation's largest wholesale club chain are "absolutely false" and that the company looks forward to the whole story coming out at the jury trial, which could happen later this year. He also noted that the special master's ruling is nonbinding and could be reviewed by a federal judge.</p><p>Scofield's ruling says that during Alleyne's tenure at the Duluth store, management officials referred to him and other black and immigrant employees in derogatory terms.</p><p>Alleyne, who is from Guyana, South America, says two store managers referred to him and other black employees as "niggers". A white former employee testified before the special master that a supervisor also told employees that "this isn't the ghetto" and made references to "jungle bunnies" and "spear chuckers."</p><p>The former employee also testified that the supervisor stated in his presence "that's why niggers will never be promoted at this company" and that "dark-skinned people" were "not ... worth anything."</p><p>Alleyne says the company awarded a less-qualified white employee a promotion to night merchandising supervisor instead of him. Alleyne says he was later fired after filing a criminal complaint against a supervisor who he alleges shoved him. The special master said in his ruling that he believes the assault occurred.</p><p>But Benoliel noted that several other claims in the lawsuit were already dismissed on summary judgment in 2005, and the company believes the remaining claims will ultimately be thrown out at the jury trial.</p><p>"We're very confident in our position," Benoliel said.</p><p>In court papers, Costco says Alleyne never received the promotion in question because he never applied for it, and that even if he had he did not have as much seniority as the employee who was promoted. Costco also says Alleyne "had active counseling notices" in his personnel file, while the employee who was promoted did not. The "counseling notices" refers to written infractions for misbehavior, Benoliel said, though he declined to be more specific. Alleyne said any infractions he received were for minor violations such as being late to work.</p><p>Benoliel said he did not immediately know how many of Costco's roughly 110,000 employees are black and what percentage of managers and executives are black.</p><p>Costco operates 477 warehouses in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Mexico.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cdddb0)</p>

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