Nachack v. Walmart Inc.
- Susan Van Keulen
- 5:24-cv-00027
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Nachack v. Walmart Inc., Judge Van Keulen dismissed Nachack’s racial-discrimination claim, allowing her to amend the complaint.
The ruling directly affected Ysabelle Bouachanh Nachack’s fifth cause of action against Walmart Inc.; that claim was dismissed with leave to amend.
What happened
In Nachack v. Walmart Inc., the plaintiff alleged that a Walmart manager verbally and physically mistreated her after she sought to exchange hair coloring, and that the conduct was racially motivated.
The court ruled that the complaint did not provide enough facts to reasonably support intentional racial discrimination under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. The court said the plaintiff’s belief that race caused the conduct was not enough, and noted that facts such as a racial slur or an express reference to her race could have supplied the missing connection.
Judge Susan Van Keulen granted Walmart’s motion to dismiss and dismissed the fifth cause of action with leave to amend. The plaintiff could file an amended complaint by September 11, 2024.
The detailed version
- Nachack v. Walmart Inc. · No. 5:24-cv-00027
- Susan Van Keulen
- Aug. 21, 2024
Background
Ysabelle Bouachanh Nachack represented herself in this case. She alleged that she purchased hair coloring from Walmart online in October 2022, but received a green product instead of the pink product she ordered. She went to a Walmart store with her receipt and asked to exchange it. According to the first amended complaint, a store clerk refused, and a manager then spoke to her confrontationally, forcefully grabbed the bag containing the item, verbally and physically assaulted her, accused her of stealing, threatened to call the police, and demanded that she leave.
Nachack alleged that the manager treated her this way because of her race. The fifth cause of action claimed that Walmart violated California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act through racial discrimination.
Motion to Dismiss
Walmart moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which requires dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally sufficient claim. At this stage, the court accepted the complaint’s factual allegations as true and drew reasonable inferences in Nachack’s favor, but it did not have to accept conclusory statements or unreasonable inferences.
To state a racial-discrimination claim under the Unruh Act, a plaintiff must allege facts supporting an inference that the defendant intentionally discriminated because of race. Nachack alleged that she was born in Laos, that the manager verbally and physically assaulted her, that she believed the conduct was because of her race, and that the manager would not have acted the same way toward someone of the same race as the manager.
Court’s Analysis and Ruling
The court concluded that these allegations merely assumed that the manager’s conduct was race-based. They did not provide sufficient facts showing, or allowing a reasonable inference, that Walmart intentionally discriminated against Nachack because of her race. The court gave examples of facts that could have supplied this connection, such as the manager using a racial slur or expressly referring to Nachack’s race.
The court granted Walmart’s motion and dismissed the fifth cause of action with leave to amend. It permitted Nachack to file an amended complaint if she could, in good faith, allege sufficient facts connecting the manager’s conduct to her race. The court stated that any amended complaint had to be filed by September 11, 2024. If she did not file one by that date, the court would schedule an initial case-management conference.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.