Women Thrown Off Wine Train for #LaughingWhileBlack File $11 Million Lawsuit

As the Chronicle reports, the ten African American women and one white woman and their attorney Waukeen McCoy have scheduled a news conference in San Francisco today to announce the lawsuit.

Lisa Renee Johnson, a book clum member and an author who documented the afternoon on her Facebook page, told The Napa Valley Register that the maître d’ delivered a number of warnings to the group, threatening to eject them from the train if they did not bring their noise level down.

The East Bay women’s book club who were unceremoniously removed from the Napa Valley Wine Train on Saturday, August 22 after allegedly being too loud and disruptive for other guests are now officially suing the train’s operator for $11 million for what they believe was racial discrimination and “malicious oppression”.

‘Their post said we were physically and verbally abusive to their staff and that is not true, ‘ Johnson said.

The woman said they were escorted through six train cars in front of passengers. But the women were angered when someone from the company posted an account on Facebook, quickly deleted, that accused them of verbal and physical abuse toward other guests and staff.

“African-American adults are more likely to be shushed at, stared at, and kicked out of places where white people perceive that they do not fit”, the complaint said.

Public backlash against the company began after Johnson posted photographs and comments on Facebook describing the moment she and 10 other women were kicked off the train and told by employees they were laughing too loud.

The Napa Valley Wine Train offers food and wine to passengers as they visit Napa County wineries in updated Pullman cars.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday in San Francisco federal court.

McCoy, their attorney, promptly dismissed that offer and said similar cases of discrimination had settled in the past for as much as $5 million. At one point, a white passenger leaned into the aisle and said, “This is not a bar”, prompting Johnson to reply that it was in fact a bar because they were seated in the train’s aptly named “bar vehicle”, the complaint states.

In a statement Thursday, Singer said the wine train has hired former FBI agent Rick Smith to conduct an investigation into the incident and will not have an appropriate response to the lawsuit until his investigation is complete. The hashtag #LaughingWhileBlack took off on social media after the incident.

Ownership of the train line, which was founded in 1989, changed hands September 15, three weeks after the incident.

The women were given a full refund by the train company and Tony Gaccio, the Napa Wine Train’s chief executive officer, issued an apology admitting that his company had been “100% wrong” in its handling of the incident.