Women file $11 million discrimination suit for being kicked off Napa wine train

SAN FRANCISCO _ A predominantly black group of women kicked off a Napa wine train “for being too loud” have filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the train company, the group’s attorney announced Thursday.tmpplchld The group of 11 women, who are members of a book club, are seeking $11 million in damages from the Napa Valley Wine Train.tmpplchld They are being represented by San Francisco civil rights attorney Waukeen Q. McCoy.tmpplchld Wine train officials have hired a former FBI agent to conduct its own investigation into the incident, a company spokesman said Thursday.tmpplchld “The Napa Valley Wine Train takes the allegations of discrimination very seriously,” company spokesman Sam Singer said. “After the investigation has been conducted we will have the appropriate response to the complaint that is being filed.”tmpplchld Wine train employees evicted the women _ whose ages range from 39 to 85 _ after telling them multiple times they were being too loud during a three-hour ride through Napa’s wine country on Aug. 22.tmpplchld According to Lisa Renee Johnson, the book club’s leader, the train’s maitre d’hotel walked the women through six train cars before exiting at the St. Helena station, where police waited with them until a taxi van arrived.tmpplchld The San Francisco Bay Area women, who hail from cities including Oakland, Pittsburg, Oakley and Richmond, intended to use the train ride to discuss a romance novel. But they say they never got the chance.tmpplchld Johnson said the only thing the book club members were guilty of was occasionally laughing loudly together. She believes they were singled out because all but one of the 11 women are black, saying that other passengers also were noisy sometimes but were not admonished by train employees.tmpplchld Three days after the incident, the wine train’s chief executive officer apologized to the group, saying they should not have been ejected and that a company employee “made a bad situation worse” by initially posting a Facebook message that erroneously accused the book club members of giving train staff “verbal and physical abuse.”tmpplchld The racially charged controversy made international headlines and sparked a social media fire storm that spawned the trending hashtag, “#laughingwhileblack.”tmpplchld tmpplchld ___tmpplchld (c)2015 Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)tmpplchld Visit the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.) at www.contracostatimes.comtmpplchld Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.tmpplchld