What happened: 2000 Walterboro refusal-of-service case
On July 6, 2000, Mark and Kathy Lander and members of the Eddy family, an extended Black family, stopped at the Waffle House in Walterboro, South Carolina. Eddy v. Waffle House, Inc., 482 F.3d 674 (4th Cir. 2007), records Lander’s allegation that a waitress said they don’t serve Black customers—the alleged words, as the courts footnote them, “we don’t serve niggers in here.” The family left. The district court tried Lander’s claim; the jury found for Waffle House. The Fourth Circuit, deciding the appeal on April 6, 2007, affirmed. That is specific-incident litigation under Section 1981 and Title II-type public-accommodations theories, not a Justice Department nationwide pattern-or-practice case against the chain.
What happened: 2013 East Coast Waffles EEOC settlement
Separately, on March 28, 2013, the EEOC announced that East Coast Waffles, Inc., a franchisee operating more than 100 Waffle House restaurants in Florida and Virginia, would pay $25,000 to settle a retaliation suit. The agency charged that a Tampa store fired a worker who complained of race-based customer harassment. That settlement is labeled here as the franchisee’s, not the parent’s.
The Cookout read
Concern. An alleged n-word refusal-of-service at a Southern Waffle House is the receipt, and it is an allegation in one case that a jury did not buy on the claim that went to trial. Do not upgrade Eddy into a chainwide DOJ finding, and do not hang a franchisee’s $25,000 EEOC check on the parent as if they were the same defendant. This file will not invent a $275 million figure.