A woman has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit in Queens, New York City after a realtor accidentally marked her in a racist text message intended for someone else. Lisa Renee Olaso and her fiancé, Cyril Christopher, were looking for a house to rent in the city when their realtor sent them a message referring to their race in a derogatory manner.
Here’s what happened
According to an ABC7 report, the incident occurred in June. At that time, Lisa Renee Olaso and Cyril Christopher were looking for a house to rent in Queens, having recently relocated from Delaware.
A broker from real estate company Douglas Elliman was scheduled to meet them to show them a rental apartment in Flushing.
However, as the couple was getting out of their car, the broker saw them from a distance and marked Olaso in a text message intended for the property owner.
"As we were getting out of the car, I received the text message that said, 'Ugh. They are Black,'" Olaso said.
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The woman immediately told her fiancé to get back in the car. She then explained why to the broker.
{{/usCountry}}The woman immediately told her fiancé to get back in the car. She then explained why to the broker.
{{/usCountry}}"When she looked at her phone, she started to explain that there were previous, Black tenants in the neighborhood and that they had caused a lot of trouble," Olaso said.
Racial discrimination lawsuit filed
The couple is now suing Douglas Elliman, the broker, and several people listed as owners of the property. Their attorney, Kenneth Mollins, argued that suing the property owners is not incorrect because the message did not occur in isolation.
"Unless the person receiving the text gets it in some context to know, why she's sending that. So, we believe the homeowner was in some way responsible here," Mollins said.
Douglas Elliman said that the broker had been let go because of the incident. "Douglas Elliman has a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination of any kind, and the agent is no longer with the company,” a spokesperson for the company said.
(Also read: Black passengers sue American Airlines over alleged ‘egregious race discrimination’)