Former San Ramon Home Depot cashier sues retailer over alleged age discrimination
A former Home Depot cashier is suing the retail giant, saying she was the victim of age discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination and emotional distress after a customer bullied her into completing a suspicious transaction.
Filed July 31 in Contra Costa County Superior Court, the suit alleges Carleen Acevedo, now 72, was fired at age 70 and was discarded "like trash" after she came face-to-face with a thief, her lawyers said Monday in a statement.
The suit accuses Home Depot of using the incident as a pretext to fire her, "demonstrating a disregard for employee safety at a time when smash-and-grab robberies were rampant."
Acevedo worked alone in the San Ramon store's garden center July 14, 2023, when she assisted a customer using a debit card. The back of the card had instructions to process payments as cash transactions.
Afterward, Acevedo thought about the transaction and became suspicious of the behavior of the customer and the debit card.
The customer returned later and wanted to buy some high-dollar items. Acevedo was uncomfortable with the transactions, according to the lawsuit, and tried to call her manager or another head cashier for assistance but no one answered.
When Acevedo explained she was calling her supervisor, the customer allegedly aggressively told her, "Don't call them." Then he menacingly leaned over, as if preparing to strike her, the suit says.
Fearing for her safety, Acevedo completed the transaction but also printed a duplicate copy of the receipt for her manager, which also angered the customer, the lawsuit says.
Her lawyers from Oakland-based Benton Employment Law said when she processed the transaction under duress, Acevedo was petrified of the man. She was aware of company policy that employees weren't supposed to stop customers from stealing.
She knew a security guard at a nearby Home Depot in Pleasanton had been shot to death by a shoplifter in April 2023.
Home Depot fired Acevedo on July 18, 2023, allegedly for violating the company's standards of performance and alleged gross negligence "but those were just pretexts and she was fired because of her age," said her attorney, Chambord Benton-Hayes.
A message left for Home Depot's media relations department wasn't immediately returned Monday.
Acevedo is also alleging age discrimination after she complained to management in January 2023, after seven years at the company, that a newly hired teenager received a higher wage than her. Acevedo eventually received a pay raise, but the company allegedly never informed her of the result of any investigation of her legally protected complaint of age discrimination.
"Ms. Acevedo got caught between a thief using intimidation to take merchandise and a management team looking for any excuse to fire her," Benton-Hays said. "She followed company policy when faced with an aggressive thief. The real reason she was fired was that she had the temerity to complain of wage discrimination based on her age."
The lawsuit seeks past and future compensatory and punitive damages, in an amount to be determined.
