Lexington-Fayette Urban County
Human Rights Commission
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November
21, 2001
The Lexington-Fayette Urban
County Human Rights Commission upheld a decision that awarded a Lexington woman
$5,000 in damages resulting from her claim that she was denied full and equal
enjoyment of a service due to her race, black and national origin, Jamaican, in
Meloris Baker v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
In October of 1999, Meloris
Baker filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission claiming that she was
repeatedly stopped and searched after a security alarm sounded when she was
leaving the Richmond Road Wal-Mart store in September 1999. Ms. Baker stated
that after numerous searches she was allowed to leave the store, but Wal-Mart
employees followed her into another store in the shopping center where the
Wal-Mart employees harassed Ms. Baker and searched her belongings for the fifth
time.
The Commission issued a
determination of probable cause on March 12, 2001. A public hearing was
scheduled for July 9, 2001, after efforts at conciliation were unsuccessful.
On August 23, 2001, the hearing examiner issued a default judgement
against Wal-Mart on the issue of liability for the discriminatory acts directed
at Ms. Baker and awarded Ms. Baker $2,500 as damages for Wal-Mart’s acts of
intentional and illegal discrimination and an additional $2,500 as damages for
Ms. Baker’s embarrassment and humiliation.
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