Women Kicked Off Napa Wine Train Consider Lawsuit

The lawyer for a group of women kicked off the Napa Valley Wine Train last month says the company’s apology for the incident isn’t enough and that his clients are considering filing a discrimination lawsuit.

San Francisco attorney Waukeen McCoy said the company’s decision to remove the 11 women, 10 of whom are black, was racially motivated. The group, a reading club, was taken from the train after complaints that it was too loud.

McCoy said the incident also involved a breach of contract, a “breach of good faith and fair dealing” and emotional distress “because of how they were taken off the train, being paraded in front of all the other patrons and taken off the train with the police standing outside of the train.”

The wine train’s CEO, Tony Giaccio, apologized last week, saying the company was “100 percent wrong” to have removed the women from the train. He promised a refund, offered an entire train car to the group for up to 50 people and said the company would initiate new diversity training.

“We believe we’ve done the right thing by acknowledging our mistakes. … We didn’t do what we were supposed to do,” wine train spokesman Kevin Keane said Monday.

But McCoy said that doesn’t go far enough.

“I’m not going to advise them to settle the case for 52 tickets on a wine train,” he said. “They don’t want to go on another wine train, because it would only bring back the memories of them being kicked off the train.”

McCoy is seeking a meeting with wine train management and said he is eager to settle out of court.

“The main principle here is that these women were kicked off the train illegally, and they want to make sure that these employees are trained,” he said. “… We don’t want any of this to happen to any other group,” he said.

McCoy added that he’s looking into a report of a similar incident involving a group of Latino passengers. The company has said that passengers of “all different races” are asked to leave the train about once a month.

The wine train’s Keane said the train already has diversity training for staff, and more is in the works.

“In our opinion, none of what occurred was a matter of discrimination or was racist in any way. This was simply the staff not handling this particular situation well,” said Keane. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be more sensitive to groups as they come on the train and how we handle them.”