Notable Results
Yvonne Selby v. CVS Health Corporation et. al
On November 5, 2019, The Chinwah Firm LLC filed a lawsuit on behalf of Yvonne Selby against CVS Health Corporation and three of its subsidiaries.
Selby is a Black woman and a longtime resident of Baltimore, Maryland. On June 14, 2019, she was prevented from buying medicine at a local CVS Pharmacy by a white CVS employee who claimed that a certain CVS policy required rejecting Ms. Selby’s cash payment. The employee refused to accept Selby’s cash payment--even after a member of CVS upper management made clear that no such policy existed at the time. To make matters worse, immediately after Selby told the employee that she believed the employee was racially profiling her, the employee made several Baltimore Police Department officers eject Ms. Selby from the store.
According to the Complaint, CVS Health racially profiled Selby and then made false statements to hide the racial motivation behind rejecting her cash payment. The Complaint also alleges that CVS Health reacted to Selby’s complaints about racial profiling by making a false police report about her and then having her ejected from the store by local police officers. As a result, the Complaint says, CVS Health and its subsidiaries subjected Selby to race-based discrimination, race-based harassment, retaliation, and retaliatory harassment in violation of Sections 1981 and 1982 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. In addition, CVS Health and its subsidiaries engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices in violation of the Maryland Consumer Protection Act.
The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages as well as an injunction to stop CVS Health and its subsidiaries from discriminating against any shopper on account of race.
Click here to read the Complaint.