Starbucks told to pay $2.7 million more to ex-manager awarded $25.6 million over firing

abcnews.go.com:

Starbucks has been ordered to pay an additional $2.7 million to a former regional manager earlier awarded $25.6 million after alleging that she and other white employees were unfairly punished after the high-profile arrests of two Black men at a Philad...

CAMDEN, N.J. — A judge has ordered Starbucks to pay an additional $2.7 million to a former regional manager earlier awarded more than $25 million after she alleged she that and other white employees were unfairly punished after the high-profile arrests of two Black men at a Philadelphia location in 2018.

In June, Shannon Phillips won $600,000 in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages after a jury in New Jersey found that race was a determinative factor in Phillips’ firing, in violation of federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that U.S. District Judge Joel Slomsky on Wednesday also ordered Starbucks to pay Phillips another $2.73 million in lost compensation and tax damages, according to court documents. The company opposed paying any amount, saying Philipps had not proven she couldn’t have earned the same or more in the future.

In April 2018, a Philadelphia store manager called police on two Black men who were sitting in the coffee shop without ordering anything. Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson were later released without charges.

Phillips, then regional manager of operations in Philadelphia, southern New Jersey, and elsewhere, was not involved with arrests. However, she said she was ordered to put a white manager who also wasn’t involved on administrative leave for reasons she knew were false, according to her lawsuit.

Phillips, 52, said she was fired less than a month later after objecting to the manager being