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Toys "R" Us staff menaced transgendered shoppers with baseball bats & verbal abuse

Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:30 / 28.06.02

From The Advocate: Transsexuals win harassment suit against Toys "R" Us

Apparently these three people were out shopping in Toys "R" Us and were verbally abused and threatened with violence by members of staff. A jury upheld their case-- but awarded each of the victims only $1 apiece in damages.

What the fuck? Is there more to this that I don't know, or is it just utterly unjust?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:32 / 28.06.02

One sodding dollar? How the fuck does that work?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

22:13 / 28.06.02

That's what I want to know. The Advocate article didn't go into much detail.

22:28 / 28.06.02

if i got a dollar everytime i was called names and menaced, it wouldn't be too bad.

22:51 / 28.06.02

Hmmmm....for obvious reasons I really hoped this was a 'joke' article, but I'm kinda stunned into silence upon reading it.

It occurs to me that the 'award' is really just adding fuel to the fire, as it will almost certainly result in a further court case...

23:30 / 28.06.02

There is an actual term for cases like that, unfortunately I can't remember it. Basically, the point of the trial is to determine whether the plaintiff is right or not. If the plaintiff wins, they are able to say "I told you so" and receive a dollar, sort of to mark that. I don't know if it's different in America or not, but I know it does exist in Canada.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

06:17 / 29.06.02

It's slightly more fucked up if you look at the Washington Post article in which we find;

The plaintiffs claimed that during two shopping excursions at a Toys "R" Us store in December 2000, employees called them names and menaced them with baseball bats because of their lifestyle.

If true this punishment has been no punishment at all.

08:30 / 29.06.02

I have mixed feelings about this. While I'm very much with the trans women on this one (not least for the fabulous line "They can't walk in our shoes"), I hate the culture of compensation (unpleasant, bigoted, threatening behaviour, but $900,000?) and wish the Canadian idea of the 'moral victory' (assuming that's the underlying premise of the type of court case MissLenore is talking about) was more widely accepted, without the seeming need to win frankly obscene sums of money in order to 'prove' one's mental suffering...

09:07 / 29.06.02

As a UK lawyer, I agree with Ganesh. Over here you get awards of damages to compensate you on a really basic principle:
The damages should put you in the position you would have been had the tort (civil non-contractual wrong with a remedy at law) not been committed.

Had the wrong not been committed the three complainants would have, what, been able to purchase an X-box? There is simply no way that they were $300,000 worse off because of the harrassment. Possibly a few thousand, depending on the degree of trauma - I don't know the details of the case and the report doesn't give them. (Obviously, if there was physical harm it gets a lot easier to identify loss and damage.)

What it appears to they were trying to do was use the civil justice system to punish people for breaching their civil rights. Whilst I am fully in support of some method of enforcing civil rights I don't think it should be the civil justice system - if there is punishment it's penal, and that should be under the criminal justice system with its additional safeguards of defendants' rights.

On the other hand, I am a UK lawyer, and I recognise that our view of the legal system is by no means the only worthwhile one and that other systems allow a greater degree of 'penality' in their civil systems. (For instance, in the UK exemplary damages - meaning, in effect, damages greater than the loss suffered in order, usually, to punish the wrongdoer - are incredibly rarely allowed, whereas in the US it appears a relatively regular occurrance.)

Less searchable M0rd4nt

11:00 / 29.06.02

Well, maybe $300,000 was excessive, but $1 is just a joke. The could at least have srung for some Lego or something.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

11:09 / 29.06.02

Agreed. From what little I dimly recall such small payments are made either to people who are genuinely taking out litigation to get an apology or some such but don't care about money, or are given in cases where the victor is correct within the law but everyone thinks they are a shit. I can't remember but suspect someone like Mohammed Fayed was 'rewarded' one pound on the grounds that they hadn't done what it was said they'd done, but everyone is aware they are dishonest in any other number of ways.

11:21 / 29.06.02

Lada, you are correct. They are what is known as 'nominal damages' and used to be set at one farthing (1/3 of an old penny). In the UK they are a real kick in the teeth, because the usual rule is that if you win the other side have to pay your reasonable costs of litigation, but if you get nominal damages you generally have to bear your own costs and even, sometimes, pay the other side's. I doubt this has so much effect in the US where you generally bear your own costs. I don't know about Canada.

Having looked into the story, it appears that Toys 'r' Us admitted the taunts, but denied the threats of violence. Also:
(i) The complainants (non-pejorative term) went in to the store on 2 weeks running. The first time they were taunted, complained to the management and were given 1/2 off their Malibu Beach House Barby set.
(ii) The second week they were allegedly threatened, complained and were offered 100 "Geoffry Dollars" (gift token I think) but refused and sued.

11:22 / 29.06.02

By the by, I am not making up the Malibu Beach House Barby bit of the story.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

13:11 / 29.06.02

I would like to know if they recieved the $1 in addition to having TRU pay legal fees, didnt see that anywhere in the article.

See, my whole thing is, lets say i got to harlem, and in a grocery am called whitey by employees, i complain and the manager gives me a % off my purchase of wild turkey. Cool deal.
If i go back, the only reason i would is A) to start some shit, which i avoid, or B) because i want some more free shit.

If you dont like how you are treated, email all your pals, suggest they boycott or even pickett outside. I really see no reason to continue shopping at a place where you know you will be harassed, unless of course you are hoping they will harass you so you can sue, which is lame.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:15 / 29.06.02

Elijah... maybe they wanted to buy some toys? I do kind of see your point to an extent, though.
It would be interesting to know whether they'd actually wanted a big cash payout, or just the apology.
Either way, though. Baseball bats? Fuck.

13:31 / 29.06.02

Elijah: I don't think I'd go that far. Okay, I don't think they were entitled to huge compensation for their distress, I do think they were morally in the right. Suggesting they returned with the sole purpose of "starting some shit" seems just a little close, for my liking, to the opinions expressed by others in Kegboy's 'Pride Parade People' thread - y'know, the whole 'oddly-dressed people are doing it just to piss people off' thing.

You may be right; they may have had ulterior motives in returning to the toy store. They have just as much right as anyone else to expect a courteous service, however, and it's important - at least in the first instance - to give them the benefit of the doubt. To do otherwise seems uncomfortably like 'blame the victim'...

14:36 / 29.06.02

Working under pure speculation here, they may have been harrassed by just one employee on their first visit, and didn't think the odds were good for a repeat. Besides, it could have been the most convenient toy store to go to, or it may have had a product that they had seen on their first visit, so why not go back? Why should they have to go out of their way to satisfy some idiots? It sounds like the second incident (which I'm assuming was the baseball bat episode) was possibly more extreme then the first, enough that some Geoffrey bucks weren't going to cut it.

And about this baseball bat thing, I wonder if they threatened verbally, or if they actually walked through the store with the damn things. I know that when I worked at TRU, and any retail environment for that matter, you did not cruise the aisles like a swaggering moron WITH A WEAPON in front of customers. They should have been canned. That's the part that gets me.

15:58 / 29.06.02

From what I have been able to find out about the case:
(i) They appear to have returned to purchase barbies. I don't know why they wished to do so.
(ii) The first incident involved taunting by, I think, a number of employees.
(iii) The second incident - the alleged baseball bat incident - involved two employees holding baseball bats at the door of the store, one of whom allegedly said to the other 'If one of them goes past I am going to hit them' (or words to that effect - I read the article a few hours ago).

I would stress - I am not convinced the allegations of threats with baseball bats were proven. I would be very surprised if they were because:
(i) Toys 'r' Us would have almost certainly sacked the employees in question
(ii) That would be a criminal action, namely assault (rather than battery which includes physical contact).
(iii) Even relatively bigotted judges and juries tend to dislike physical threats involving weapons - I would have expected to see such actions reflected in the damages award.
(iv) Most importantly none of the news reports I have been able to find have mentioned such a finding. Don't you think that if there was such a finding www.advocat.com and/or other media would have mentioned it?

On the whole, I suspect that there was found to be offensive behaviour but that no physical threats were found proven. On that basis (depending on what sort of offensive behaviour was found) an offer of $100 gift token might be considered reasonable compensation, and taking it to court the sort of action to be discouraged, hence the nominal award of damages.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

18:53 / 29.06.02

Fist said what i was aiming at, but i didnt get facts to back it up.

And no, i dont think they went back to "start some shit" as i posted, that was one possibility i listed.

However, there are people, who when wronged once, decide that they deserve more than they got, so set themselves up to be wronged again in order to get what they feel they deserve.

Yes, if there were threats of physical violence, they should have recieved more cash. If, however, there was some sneering and name calling, sure its not right, but a big pile of money for being called names has always seemed silly to me. If i wear white after labour day people may sneer and point, but i dont deserve money for it.

10:28 / 30.06.02

I'm quite well aware that those sorts of people exist, Elijah, and I think you'll find I argued against payouts. My point was, it's important that those of us unacquainted with the facts here try not to jump immediately to 'they set themselves up to be wronged again' conclusions without some recourse to evidence. Benefit of the doubt, innocent until proven guilty, all that jazz.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:03 / 30.06.02

On the same tip, I'd just like to say that I think the amount of damages they were claiming for was ridiculous too. My suspicious little mind does wonder if they went there perfectly innocently then thought after the innocent about trying to get as much as they could out of the situation. But I guess we'll never know...

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:51 / 01.07.02

Elijah, sweetheart - how much compensation would you feel entitled to if I were to call you a fucking cretin whose reliance on "Everquest" for cues on social interaction leaves you woefully underequipped to interact with human beings in three dimensions?

They maybe, just maybe, returned to buy Barbies *because they wanted some cockwatering Barbies*.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:07 / 01.07.02

You can get cockwatering Barbies now? Perhaps it's time to put a dress on and head down to Toys'r'us myself...