Pizza Hut Judge Rejects Jury's Decision
A judge in Orlando, Florida has tossed out a jury's decision that Pizza Hut should pay $1.25 million to a black family for allowing a worker to send a receipt that had a racist slur written on it, reports CBS News Correspondent Sam Litzinger.
The eight-member jury found that the company intentionally discriminated against Eugenia Gray when a pizza delivered to her home in August 1998 contained the words "Stupid Nigger" on the receipt.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Fawsett said that no reasonable jury could have found Pizza Hut liable and hold them responsible for the actions of a single employee when she quickly rejected the jury's award. Gray's attorneys, Lisa and Mark Tietig, said they'll appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
"She should have thrown this out earlier rather let us all go through it," said Peggy Watson, Gray's mother. "She just doesn't feel like we were discriminated against."
The jury deliberated nearly five hours before awarding Gray, of Cocoa Beach, $1 million in punitive damages and $250,000 in compensatory damages. The trial started Wednesday.
The jury included a black man, a Hispanic man, an Asian man and a woman.
Gray's mother and stepfather, Lorenzo Watson, filed the suit on Gray's behalf. They originally sought $14.2 million because they wanted to "make Pizza Hut take racism seriously," said Mark Tietig.
Pizza Hut's attorney Stephen Corse had argued that the employee acted on his own and was immediately fired by the company. Attorneys for the company refused to comment after the verdict.
Both sides agreed that Gerald Land, a shift manager at the Port St. John restaurant, printed the receipt containing the racist remark after taking Gray's order by telephone. The remark had apparently been entered into the computer two months before when Gray previously had placed a pizza order.
When deliverer Rina Braly-Yanko dropped off the pizza at the Watson home, she noticed the invective and became upset. She showed the Watsons the receipt and said, "I'm sick and tired of this kind of stuff. This happens every day."
The family threw the pizza away, fearing it was contaminated, according to the complaint.
Lisa Tietig told jurors that Pizza Hut and the Port St. John restaurant's general manager, Gary Comingdeer, failed to take action that could have prevented the offensive receipt from landing in the Watsons' hands.
Moreover, Land and other workers were known to make racist remarks on a regular basis but Comingdeer didn't discipline anyone for it, she said.
"I don't know what to make of this," Tietig said outside the courtroom. "It's an emotional rollercoaster and it's another slap in their face."
The Dallas-based pizza company settled a lawsuit in 1998 with a black family who said they were harassed by white employees at a restauran near St. Louis. Last year, the company agreed to pay $160,000 to a black family who claimed they were not allowed to celebrate a child's birthday at a restaurant in Midlothian, Ill.