Woman files discrimination & harassment suit over racist receipt

After noticing what she claims was a racial slur on a drug store receipt, a Korean American woman from New Jersey is suing CVS for $1 million in a discrimination & harassment based suit. Hyun Lee states that she went to a CVS store in Egg Harbor, New Jersey, to have pictures developed. When she picked up the pictures, she noticed that in the "customer name" section of her receipt, the name "Ching Chong" was listed instead of her real name. Lee claims that "Ching Chong" is a pejorative term that is discriminatory against people of Asian descent.

After the incident, Lee immediately contacted CVS's customer relations department to discuss the matter. Lee says that CVS was not cooperative, however, and simply told her that the employee who wrote the offensive term on the receipt would be "counseled." This was unacceptable to Lee. Instead, she had hoped that the employee would be fired or that she would at least be given a formal apology. Despite this incident, as far as Lee knows the employee is still working at the CVS store.

Since CVS did not apologize, Lee filed a federal discrimination & harassment law suit against the drug store. The suit, seeking a remedy of $1 million, alleges Lee suffered "injury, mental anguish, severe emotional distress, harm, and damages." In addition to this, Lee also claims that she continues to suffer emotional distress and is not comfortable with returning to the CVS store until the employee has been terminated.

Unfortunately, this is not the first instance of racial epithets being placed on receipts. There have been numerous issues throughout the country where customers have received receipts that contain derogatory names under the "customer name" section of the receipt at other establishments such as Papa John's, Chick-Fil-A, and Hooters. Although customers may be offended by this, they may not be able to hold a company liable for its employees' actions if the employees are directly violating company policy. Because of the complexity of these situations, it is important to quickly obtain professional legal advice in order to properly determine a customer's right to recovery.

If you have any questions regarding the possible discrimination & harassment, you may contact one of our employment lawyers. The New Jersey attorneys at The Mark Law Firm are the expert attorneys in New Jersey. Contact us today!

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/04/new-jersey-woman-sues-cvs-for-1m-for-racist-receipt/