Article from Yonhap:

“An Employee Hit Me” New York Korean Sues McDonald’s for 10 Billion Won

A Korean in his sixties living in New York has filed a suit for significant damages after he was struck by a McDonalds employee.

According to the law firm of Kim & Bae, Mr. Kim, age 62, filed a civil suit in the amount of $10 million in the Queens County court of New York against the McDonalds Corporation, their New York location, and the manager, Mrs. Rooshi Sajjad, age 50.

The law firm of Kim & Bae, acting on behalf of Mr. Kim, described the incident as follows:

At 4:30 in the afternoon of February 16th, Mr. Kim entered the McDonalds at 40-18 Main Street in Flushing, Queens.

At that time, there were four cashiers at the counter, however three of them were laughing and making noise while only one cashier was serving customers.

After standing in line for ten minutes, Kim finally reached the counter and ordered a coffee, saying, “this is taking too long.” The manager, Mrs. Sajjad, upon hearing these words from behind the counter, abruptly turned around and said, “we don’t sell coffee to people like you. Get out of here right now.”

Kim answered, “What’s wrong with me?” to which Sajjad responded, shouting, “Get out. We don’t have any coffee for you.”

Kim, embarrassed, said “alright”, and took his phone out of his pocket to record the situation. At this, Sajjad came toward him with a 1.5 meter long broom and used it to strike him, hurting Kim’s hand and breaking his phone.

After someone called them, police showed up to the restaurant, where they verified the CCTV footage and took statements from other restaurant customers. The police arrested Sajjad, took her to the police station, and held her without bail on charges of assault.

After hurting his fingers in the assault, Kim was unable to function at his wallpaper job. He says that he is still suffering serious mental distress due to the shame and humiliation he felt at the unjust treatment.

Kim & Bae believe that based on the fact that Kim was the only Asian customer in the restaurant at the time and that the defendant, Sajjad, said the words ‘people like you’, this was a hate crime related to race.

The McDonalds where the incident occurred is only 1 kilometer away from the McDonalds where a conflict flared up between elderly Korean-Americans and restaurant staff in January of this year.

Attorney Bae Moon-Kyung said, ‘I get very angry when I think about how Korean-Americans keep on having problems like this is…if there had been a proper response a month ago, this wouldn’t have happened. They just let things lie and so this happened again. It is because we haven’t raised the alarm through strong legal measures that this keeps on happening.

Regarding the amount of $10 million, Bae explained that, “regardless of the money, this is to confirm the principle of treating everyone equally with respect.”

Mr. Kim has lived in America for 30 years and is a U.S. citizen.

Comments from Daum:

조선쟁이:

If he has U.S. citizenship, then he’s not a Korean. He’s an American.

해바바:

Rights aren’t just given to you. You have to claim them. The employee’s salary isn’t coming from the manager’s generosity. It’s coming out of the customer’s pocket.

이젠뭘로:

A justified lawsuit.

딩가딩가:

Regardless of the conflict regarding Korean-Americans, I’m impressed by the immediate response by the American police. A quick review of the CCTV and then straight to arrest!!! Hey Korean police, try learning a thing or two from this!

corea:

In America, racial discrimination is the biggest crime there is, they really screwed up here.

원스어폰어타임:

With a name like Sajjad, she must be one of those Muslim cockroaches or something, ke ke ke. Don’t you know those people are even crazier~~~!! ke ke

aaronyu:

With the laws in Korea, if he had filed a case here, he would have been lucky to receive 500,000 won, ($480) even if he had good evidence/// That’s why we don’t file suits and companies can act up.

졸려님:

Hmm, so the manager doesn’t have his employees working, then when a customer complains about the slow service she says she won’t sell to people like him and hits him.. Just reading about it, it’s enough to make anyone angry.

투명곰:

Since he’s a Korean American, a lawsuit will be the end of this. If he was black, there would at best be hundreds of people protesting in front of that McDonalds, normally they would just smash all the windows and set it on fire. All the news channels would report about it as the top story for months.

아르자마스:

McDonalds is screwed.. and they should be glad that they are only getting sued for 10 billion won, if it was me I would have gone for a 100 billion.

토성:

The Korean community should get together and boycott McDonalds. It seems like they are often discriminating against Asians.

주화입마:

Come on~~~ Why are they going so far with this? Just live together peacefully… Why did those older Koreans have to go to a place where they weren’t getting service? And a suit for 10 billion won for getting hit with a broom? Hmm… Even if it was assault with other motives.. It looks like they are trying to make this case more than it is.

노브라는 반칙:

America’s lawsuits don’t make any sense. Someone can claim 60 million dollars over a pair of pants but then get only two or three hundred thousand if someone dies. What a strange country,,,

행불된정의를찾아서:

If he has U.S. citizenship, he is an American…

고이비토:

I can picture the scene easily. Let’s stop making a bad impression for the Korean community.

온상꼬치: