Woman Awarded $1 Million Over Racial Slander

A black woman, who was found to have been discriminated against by a gas station attendant who told her, “I don’t serve Black people,” has been awarded $1 million in damages by a jury.

The jury in Multnomah County, last Monday, awarded Portland resident Rose Wakefield, 63, $1 million in punitive damages.

Gregory Kafoury, Wakefield’s attorney, claimed that on March 12, 2020, she stopped for gas at a Jacksons’ Food Store in Beaverton and watched Nigel Powers, the attendant, ignore her while filling gas for other motorists.

According to Kafoury, when she proceeded to ask for assistance, he responded, “I’ll get to you when I feel like it.”

Wakefield was then spotted going inside to get assistance. She was followed outside by another worker who refilled her gas.

According to Kafoury, Wakefield reportedly questioned Powers about his refusal to assist her as she was leaving, and he reportedly replied, “I don’t serve Black people”.

“I was like, ‘What world am I living in?’ ” Wakefield told KGW. “This is not supposed to go down like that. It was a terrible, terrible confrontation between me and this guy.”

Wakefield complained to supervisors twice the following week, but Kafoury claimed that her phone calls were largely ignored.

After a month, Powers got fired after it was discovered through company records that he had received many written warnings for using his cellphone, according to Kafoury.

“Ms Wakefield originally was just going to let this go,” Kafoury said. “She told her friends that it was too disturbing, and she didn’t want to deal with it. And then she thought about it and said, ‘It’s too wrong. I have to do something about it.’ ”

According to a statement from Jacksons Food Stores, the company has a zero-tolerance policy against discrimination of any kind, which also stated that it respectfully disagrees with the jury’s decision since “our knowledge does not align with the verdict.”

The statement said, “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.”

The business gave no further details, but Kafoury said that Powers was only disciplined for not serving clients in the order they arrived and that Powers was never asked by the business about the racial remarks.