An Act of Hate Or Another Hoax?

In a lawsuit you can allege anything

Either the Red Robin Restaurant has a Jussie Smollett Special on the menu, or one of its employees committed a disgusting act of revenge against a rude customer.

A black man, using the pseudonym C.T., alleges in a $1 million lawsuit that an employee at a Red Robin restaurant in Clackamas County ejaculated in his salad as an act of racial discrimination, negligence and sex abuse.

The Oregonian bit on March 26 and offered this story free to nonsubscribers. For at least four days the story remained in play on its website. Readers in the Twittersphere, almost to a person, gagged and demanded more than $1 million on behalf of the man.

Few people – including The Oregonian’s reporter – seemed curious as to how this deed actually went down.

As alleged in the lawsuit and story, the man visited the Red Robin restaurant on March 24, 2021 – a year ago – with a party of eight comprised of mostly black adults and some children. Restaurant staff couldn’t immediately accommodate a party of eight and asked if they would be willing to take separate tables.

C.T. looked around and noticed large groups of white patrons seated together and complained to the manager, who tried to explain by noting that the man had a “big gang.” Apparently the takeaway here is that the comment was racist because of the g-word.

The party of eight finally was seated, and they ordered food.

As charged in the lawsuit, C.T. dug into his salad and ate “a decent amount” when he realized semen was in the dressing. He took several photos of the substance in a napkin and started vomiting. He went to the hospital where he was diagnosed with anxiety. To this day he continues to suffer trauma.

Laboratory tests confirmed that the substance allegedly removed from the salad was human genetic material.

What is striking about this case is how quickly so many people immediately believed that a restaurant employee did something deliberately and maliciously to a customer’s food. What about the logistics?

Did the server or other restaurant employee take the salad into the restroom and do the deed? Wouldn’t somebody have seen him carrying a salad into the restroom and think it was strange? Or, did the employee do the deed into a small cup in the restroom, then bring it out into the kitchen area, and toss the salad or serve the dressing on the side? How is it that C.T. knew it was semen? Is he acquainted with the taste? Or did he bring the semen with him?

Go back to the date when the incident occurred – March 24, 2021 – one year ago. How long did it take to find a laboratory willing to test this substance? Laboratories like to have some idea of what they’re testing, where it has been, how it has been stored, who has handled it. What did the lab learn regarding the DNA of this particular human genetic material? Was it from a white man or a black man?

The incident was reported to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office, and investigators asked the restaurant for a list of men working on the night in question. If they are each asked to produce a DNA sample, will C.T. also be asked to do the same?

Food handlers do have opportunities to mess with people’s food, and some might be motivated to do so. Maybe they hate their jobs. Maybe they hate their customers for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with skin color.

Police officers, for example, have to be careful where they take their meal breaks. So does anybody who is recognizable and might have an enemy working in food service.

Then there are hoaxes. A hate crime is an easy accusation to make. One of the most recent and famous was by actor Jussie Smollett, who hired two guys to throw a rope around his neck and yell epithets at him. The public initially smothered him in sympathy. His story eventually didn’t check out, and he was later convicted of making a false police report.

In the Red Robin case, the lawsuit and The Oregonian story name the business and the restaurant manager, although the newspaper takes care to note that the manager is not accused of contaminating the salad.

The Oregonian story has traveled far and wide across America and beyond. Should the story prove to be unfounded, a defamation suit is unlikely. The accusations were made in a lawsuit. They don’t have to be accurate. They are expected to be adjudicated. Allegations in a civil lawsuit are protected from litigation.

In fact, a lawsuit gives an imprimatur or legitimacy to the allegations – let them be printed.

Adding to the publicity factor is that C.T. is represented by Jason Kafoury’s law firm, Portland’s answer to TV’s popular “Better Call Saul.”

“Unlike other lawyers, we aren’t afraid to take cases to trial,” boasts the Kafoury McDougal website. “DO YOU HAVE A CASE? Don’t let the bad guys slip away. We want to hear about your case. Let’s talk.”

Under menu selections labeled Headline Victories and News, the law firm reports on other discrimination and hate cases it has been involved in.

Given the public outpouring of support for C.T., it wouldn’t be surprising if Red Robin agreed to a settlement even if there was no wrongdoing. Settling, though, only invites more lawsuits. (A fact lost on many government entities that use the taxpayers’ money to settle claims out of court purportedly to save the taxpayers the cost of attorney fees.)

It helps C.T. that Multnomah County Presiding Judge Judith Matarazzo granted his request to be known by a pseudonym, which is usually reserved for child abuse cases. (How much of America’s systemic racism is related to its infantilizing of black people?)

Matarazzo was in the news herself five years ago when then-Multnomah County District Attorney Rod Underhill filed affidavits to keep her from hearing cases involving his office because of her track record for favoring criminal defendants.

However, this year Matarazzo became presiding judge. Without the true, full name of C.T. we can’t check out his background.

What does Red Robin have in its favor? Perhaps Jussie Smollett, should this case actually makes it to trial.

While The Oregonian’s readers instantly sided with C.T., if given a chance to engage in more reasoned thought, a jury might recall the misplaced sympathy wasted on Smollett.

Wilford Reilly, a political science professor at Kentucky State University, a historically black institution, is the author of the book “Hate Crime Hoax” and says Smollett’s fake hate crime wasn't an uncommon ploy.

“The media giants that leap to publicize hate crime stories later revealed to be fakes, and the organizations that line up to defend their ‘victims’ — the Southern Poverty Law Center, Black Lives Matter, CAIR — think that they are providing a public service by fighting bigotry…,” he writes in USA Today.

“There is very little brutally violent racism in the modern USA. There are less than 7,000 real hate crimes reported in a typical year. … When violent inter-racial crimes do occur, whites are at least as likely to be the targets as are minorities.”

Hate hoaxers worsen generally good race relations, Reilly says, and distract attention from real problems.

What remains curious about this story is the willingness of so many people to believe that a food server would seek revenge by doing something disgusting to a customer’s food. Why would that be? Is it our own guilty conscience about being waited on by servers, and knowing if the roles were reversed we might get even if treated rudely?

Better be nice to the wait staff, or else.