Starbucks has been ordered to pay an additional $2.7m (€2.5m) in lost wages and tax damages to a former regional manager who was earlier awarded more than $25m (€23m) in a race discrimination case.
Shannon Phillips, who is 52, said that she and other white employees had been unfairly punished following the high-profile arrests of two black men at a store in Philadelphia in 2018.
In June, she won $600,000 dollars (€550,000) in compensatory damages and $25m in punitive damages after a jury in New Jersey found that race was a key factor in Ms Phillips' firing, which was in violation of federal and state anti-discrimination laws.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that a US district judge has now ordered Starbucks to pay Ms Phillips another $2.73m in past and future lost earnings and benefits as well as compensation for tax disadvantages due to the lump sum, according to court documents.
The company had opposed paying any amount, insisting that Ms Philipps had not proven that she could not have earned the same or more in the future.
In April 2018, a Philadelphia store manager called police on two black men who were sitting in the coffee shop without ordering anything. Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson were later released without charge.
Ms Phillips, then a regional manager, was not involved with the arrests. However, she claimed in her lawsuit that she was ordered to put a white manager on administrative leave for reasons which she knew were false.
She was fired less than a month after objecting to the manager being placed on leave.
Court documents reveal that the company’s rationale for suspending the district manager, who was not responsible for the store where the arrests took place, was an allegation that black store managers were being paid less than white managers.
Ms Phillips said that this made no sense since district managers had no input on employee salaries.
She alleged that Starbucks was taking steps to "punish white employees" who worked in the area "in an effort to convince the community that it had properly responded to the incident".
Starbucks is seeking a new trial, arguing that jurors were allowed to remain despite having expressed negative opinions about the company, that incorrect information in witness testimony "poisoned the well", and that Ms Phillips should not have been awarded "double damages" on both the state and federal allegations, the Inquirer reported.
