A company that operates 112 Chili’s restaurants in South Texas will have to face a lawsuit accusing it of discriminating against a Black woman who alleges she wasn’t seated at an open table because of her race after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit revived the suit Wednesday.
Brinker Texas, Inc., had argued Sharnez Hager didn’t have a claim here because she was eventually seated at the restaurant. Judge James L. Dennis, writing for the court, explained that the company’s position is “meritless” and based on an “unjustifiably narrow interpretation of the statutes at issue in this case.”
“Congress did not draft these watershed anti-discrimination laws so narrowly,” Judge Dennis wrote. “A restaurant cannot preference seating white customers over Black customers and be said to offer ‘equal enjoyment’ of its services to its Black patrons, simply because they were, before the end of the day, offered a table.”
“These facts easily make out and support an inference of discriminatory treatment on the basis of race in the sort of relationship that we recognize exists between a public accommodation restaurant and its patrons. Brinker’s argument that Sharnez cannot establish a prima facie case of violations of § 1981, § 1982, and Title II therefore fails.”
Hager visited the Chili’s in Rosenberg, Texas, about 35 miles southwest of downtown Houston, in March 2017, accompanied by her two sisters, a sister’s boyfriend and her nephew. The group, all of whom are Black, requested a table and were told by a white hostess there would be a 45-minute wait. Hager inquired about a large, unoccupied table and was told by the hostess it was reserved.
Hager alleges her white fiancé, who is now her husband, entered the restaurant about 20 minutes later, asked for a table and was told he would be seated at the table the hostess originally said was reserved for another customer.
That prompted Hager to confront the hostess, who allegedly apologized. The family was seated at the table, but after a white waiter who began taking drink orders “refused to further serve the table because of Sharnez’s rude and insulting demeanor,” the family left, according to the opinion.
Before any lawsuit was filed, a meeting took place about 20 days after the incident at the Rosenberg restaurant between Hager, other members of the Hager family, Brinker’s management team and Brinker’s attorney. At that meeting, the hostess told Hager “I apologize for discriminating against you.” The Fifth Circuit’s opinion notes that two members of Brinker’s management team who were present for the apology were later deposed, and neither contested the apology had been made.
Initially, Hager filed her lawsuit pro se in state court against Brinker, which Brinker removed to federal court.
In support of Brinker’s motion for summary judgment, it provided the court a declaration from Tristan Venable, head of internal personnel operations, who interviewed those involved in the incident at the Rosenberg restaurant and concluded “race did not play a factor in seating [Sharnez’s] party that evening.”
Venable determined the hostess placed the Hager party on a “false wait” because there were not enough staff to handle the large group.
A magistrate judge recommended dismissing Hager’s lawsuit, finding Hager failed to “meet the burden” to show Brinker’s explanation for the wait was pretextual. U.S. District Judge Sim T. Lake III agreed and granted Brinker summary judgment dismissing the suit.
Hager, who eventually retained lawyers Brian Trachtenberg of Greathouse Holloway McFadden Trachtenberg and Sarah Samuel of Hirsch & Westheimer, appealed to the Fifth Circuit in April 2021.
Judge Dennis also held that it was error on the trial court’s part to admit the declaration of Venable because he didn’t have personal knowledge of the events that are the basis of this suit, and the business record exception doesn’t apply because the documents he made were prepared in anticipation of litigation.
That holding drew a concurrence from Judges Cory T. Wilson and Leslie H. Southwick, who wrote they would have determined the business records from Venable’s investigation were admissible under an exception to the rule.
“Because Venable’s e-mail record was ‘made at or near the time’ of the incident ‘from information transmitted by someone with knowledge’ and such e-mails were regularly kept in the course of Brinker’s human resource investigations, the business record exception to the rule against hearsay is plainly met here,” the concurring judges wrote.
Brinker is represented by Victor Navasca Corpuz, Pamela B. Linberg and David Anthony Scott of Jackson Lewis.
The case number is 21-20235.