Attorneys for Trader Joe’s want a store manager dismissed as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by a young Black woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted from behind by an employee while shopping at the Encino store in 2024.
The woman alleges that the Trader Joe’s worker, Patrick Moya, told her that he liked Black girls. Her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit allegations include intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, assault, battery, violations of the Civil and Business and Professions codes and violation of the Consumer Legal Remedies Act. She seeks millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages.
Trader Joe’s attorneys previously filed court papers with Judge Jerrold Abeles asking that the Monrovia-based grocery store chain be dismissed as a defendant on grounds the lawsuit’s allegations are “fatally vague and ambiguous.”
On Wednesday, Trader Joe’s attorneys filed additional pleadings in advance of a Sept. 11 hearing asking that the Encino store manager at the time, Michael Rainer, also be removed as a party, challenging the plaintiff’s contention that Rainer and Trader Joe’s together `harassed plaintiff by creating, permitting and condoning an unsafe and hostile environment in which plaintiff was sexually assaulted, battered, humiliate and caused injury to her gender, race, and ethnicity.”
“Nowhere … are there any allegations that defendant Rainer directed (the employee) to engage in any sexual misconduct toward plaintiff,” the Trader Joe’s lawyers state in their pleadings in addressing the plaintiff’s assault and battery causes of action.
Challenging the plaintiff’s civil rights violation allegation, the Trader Joe’s attorneys state that her lawsuit has “absolutely no factual allegations” that Rainer interfered with or attempted to interfere with her constitutional or statutory rights by threatening or committing violent acts.
Insofar as the negligent hiring and supervision claim against Rainer, he was not Moya’s supervisor but instead a co-worker, according to the Trader Joe’s attorneys’ court papers.
According to her suit, the woman was a patron at the Burbank Boulevard store on Feb. 10, 2024, when Moya attacked her without warning from behind, put his hands on her waist, kissed her and whispered on one ear, ”You look beautiful Thursday,” the suit states.
“Plaintiff became fearful he would continue to forcibly touch her as he then continued to talk about her as a black girl sex object, stating that he liked Black girls, that Black girls like aggressive men, that he liked to be sexually aggressive and that he wanted to see her without her clothing on,” according to the complaint.
Moya commented on the plaintiff’s clothing and stated that she should “get naked,” the suit filed Feb. 9 further states.