Ex-NBA Player Loses Discrimination Claim Against Georgia Bar

A federal jury on Friday found that an upscale Atlanta restaurant did not violate the civil rights of an ex-NBA All Star and a friend who claimed they were expelled from the bar because they were black.

A panel of nine white members and three black deliberated just 15 minutes before deciding that Joe Barry Carroll and Joseph Shaw were not subject to racial discrimination. Their attorney, Jeffrey Bramlett, had been seeking at least $3 million in damages for the humiliation and embarrassment he claims his clients suffered when a security guard escorted them from the Tavern at Phipps in August 2006 after they refused to give up their seats to two white women.

Defense lawyer Ernest Greer said the establishment was following a longstanding policy rooted in Southern hospitality, in which men routinely give up their bar seats for women when the bar becomes crowded. Over the past 20 years, thousands of men, from stars like Michael Jordan to several sitting at the bar that night, have complied with the “good manners” policy, Greer said.

It was Carroll and Shaw who injected race into the exchange, he said.

“This incident didn’t happen because they were black,” Greer said. “This incident happened because Mr. Carroll and Mr. Shaw wanted to be treated better than anyone else that evening.”

Bramlett said restaurant management was intent on keeping the clientele predominantly white and the bar stocked with “white men and well-endowed women.”

“Southern hospitality did not apply equally to blacks and whites,” Bramlett said.

“The signal from the top was `I want a predominantly white place, it’s a good business model and it’s making me lots of money.”‘

Carroll said after the verdict he was disappointed in the outcome and the he still believed race was at the root of his treatment at the bar five years ago.

“Their behavior was outrageous,” he said. “And they know that.”

The jury that included five women disagreed.

Greer said bartenders routinely offer men free drinks or food to try to entice them to move, and questioned why Carroll and Shaw had not brought a single other disgruntled patron forward who’d gotten the same treatment.

Bramlett questioned why the defense refused to make available surveillance camera footage from that night. He said it would have resolved the question of whether a white man sitting at the bar was asked to move.

The standoff over the seats took place on a Friday night in August 2006 when Carroll, who played parts of 10 seasons in the NBA starting in the 1980s, and Shaw, an attorney, sat at and the end of a bar and ordered a few beers, a few appetizers and some liquor. As the crowd grew thicker, a bartender offered them complimentary drinks to move, but they refused.

They were asked several more times to give up their seats to women, but each time they refused, according to court testimony. A manager eventually threatened to call security if they didn’t relent, and an off-duty Atlanta police officer who works for the restaurant was summoned to the scene.

“That’s the way we do it here,” attorneys from both sides said the guard told the men as he ushered them out.

Bramlett said interviews with current and former employees show that Greg Greenbaum, the restaurant’s head, feared that “black thugs” would follow if blacks started flocking to his business. He said the restaurant systematically encouraged managers to avoid hiring too many black staffers and limited black hostesses and cocktail waitresses.

Staffers were also told to “slow serve” black patrons during hectic times, he said. And during the February 2003 NBA All-Star game, when young black basketball fans crowded the city, the restaurant hung large “Welcome Rodeo Fans” banners and played country music, according to court records.

Topics Georgia