A Black former Starbucks employee claims managers didn’t protect him from a customer who repeatedly called him a ‘n*****.’ He’s suing the company.

• A former Starbucks worker claims the company didn't protect him from verbal racial attacks.
• The customer called him a 'n*****' on several occasions, he says in a legal complaint.
• Starbucks said it had banned the customer from stores in the area.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

A Black former shift supervisor at a Starbucks in Connecticut has sued the chain, claiming that it failed to protect him from a customer who attacked him with racial slurs.

Dayshawn Rodriguez said in his complaint in the District of Connecticut court, first filed in May but revised in July, that he was repeatedly verbally harassed by a customer who called him a 'n*****.'

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Rodriguez said he worked at Starbucks for about five years. He said in his complaint that the customer was in the restroom for "quite some time" after he closed the store in Westport, Connecticut, on October 7, 2019. He said he knocked on the door to check on the customer and she came out, poked him in the chest, and said "don't rush me n*****," per the complaint.

Rodriguez said he informed the store manager, who said that she would inform the district manager, but that "they did nothing to stop or address the conduct."

Around a week later, Rodriguez told his district manager that he didn't want to serve the customer anymore, but they said it wasn't possible, per the complaint. Rodriguez said that later that month the district manager told him "that I may be too sensitive to be a shift supervisor and said the N-word is not the worst thing to be called."

Rodriguez said in the complaint that "I later demoted myself to barista."

On a later occasion, the customer returned to the store, threw water on herself, pointed at Rodriguez and said "that Black man did it," the complaint says.

Rodriguez said that he filed an incident report after taking advice from his manager, but that his district manager told him afterwards to "watch" how he writes things and that he couldn't use the N-word or curse words in the report. She also said that she wasn't able to ban the customer, per the complaint.

In June 2020, the customer visited the store again and said "I am not going to be served by this n*****," per the legal complaint. Rodriguez said that he reported this to upper management but that "they did nothing to protect me."

Rodriguez said he left his job shortly after the incident.

He said that he contacted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which had granted him the right to sue Starbucks. He is claiming monetary damages including statutory damages, wages, and "damages for emotional distress and embarrassment," without specifying an amount.

A Starbucks spokesperson told Insider that its stores were "a place of community, where everyone is welcome, provided they contribute to a positive environment and an enjoyable experience."

The spokesperson said: "We thoroughly investigated the matter alongside local law enforcement when this was raised in [August] 2020, and have taken appropriate action to ensure the safety of our partners - which includes the formal restriction of the customer from our stores in the area."