Charles “Chip” George is a 68-year-old man who shopped at the Elmwood Hobby Lobby location nearly every day for 10 years without incident. That all changed when a new store manager took over. The thing is, Chip has an intellectual disability, and he cannot count his money. For 10 years, Hobby Lobby employees gladly accommodated Chip’s request to tally his items. But on November 27, 2023 (the Monday after Thanksgiving), a simple task that usually took just one or two minutes ended with Chip being pepper sprayed by a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Deputy and spending 25 hours in jail.
Hobby Lobby was Mr. Chip’s favorite store. The walls of his apartment are lined with prints he purchased depicting his favorite Marvel superheroes. He loves to collect small objects like marbles. In 2019, Mr. Chip was placed under a limited interdiction because of his disability. Therefore, his sister, Karen Meyer, is legally responsible for his property, health decisions, and living arrangements. She also provides Mr. Chip with a $100 weekly allowance, which he mostly spent at Hobby Lobby. What does Mr. Chip do with all the items he has purchased? He and his sisters make a holiday donation to Toys for Tots, a program run by the United States Marine Corps Reserve that distributes toys to children whose parents cannot afford to buy them gifts for Christmas.
Shopping makes Mr. Chip happy. It gives him a sense of normalcy and allows him to interact with members of the community. He may not be able to drive but that doesn’t stop him from taking his daily “walkabouts” to stores like Hobby Lobby, Five Below, Barnes & Noble, and Academy Sports. According to family members, the staff at these stores love Mr. Chip and welcome him in with open arms. Many of the Hobby Lobby employees were much the same. They knew Mr. Chip as a sweet man who was always pleasant and polite. Some even said he was “awesome.” However, one employee, the new store manager Heather Ford, no longer wanted Chip in “her store.”
Heather Ford said that Mr. Chip’s mere presence made her and/or other customers “uncomfortable.” On November 27, 2023, Mrs. Ford noticed one of her employees accommodating Mr. Chip’s request to tally his items. She said that Mr. Chip was “wasting the cashiers’ time,” and she demanded he leave. From there, she escalated to yelling at Mr. Chip, banning him from the store, and calling the police on him.
During the 911 call, Mrs. Ford relayed to dispatch that he would gather items, have the cashiers ring them up, and he would return later with his allowance to purchase. But she was determined that that would stop now that she was store manager. He’d been a “problem for years” and she wanted the police to come “have a talk with him.” At no point does Mrs. Ford accuse Mr. Chip of refusing to leave the store. In fact, there is in-store surveillance footage showing Mr. Chip calmly leaving until he is stopped by Mrs. Ford. Mrs. Ford tells him, “you can’t come back in here.” Mrs. Ford knew the police were on their way and wanted to ensure they would speak with Mr. Chip. Critically, at no point did Mrs. Ford share Mr. Chip’s disability with the 911 dispatch, a fact that was well known amongst Hobby Lobby employees.
The result was predictably disastrous. Anytime you call the police, that person may be arrested, or worse. And that is especially true for people with intellectual disabilities. According to body camera footage, Mr. Chip called his other sister, Kim, to come pick him up. She was on her way, just a 10-minute drive away. But the sheriff’s deputy proceeded to escalate the situation by harassing Mr. Chip, who by then, had exited the store property and was calmly waiting for his sister. Mr. Chip had no idea what he had done wrong or why the deputy would not leave him alone. Ultimately, Mr. Chip was pepper sprayed, arrested, and put in jail for over 24 hours—without his necessary medications. The District Attorney brought criminal charges, but the state-court judge dismissed the charges after finding Mr. Chip incompetent to stand trial.
In truth, the deputy did her job—though overzealously and in need of more training. But the deputy should never have been called to Hobby Lobby in the first place. What’s worse is Hobby Lobby has a long history of “peeping Toms” roaming about their stores taking pictures under women’s skirts. They have had instances of men performing lewd acts on themselves within customer view. They even had a man shoot up drugs in their restroom. But Hobby Lobby treated Mr. Chip—who it accused of no crime—less favorably than these people. That is, Hobby Lobby calls the police on intellectually disabled customers asking for assistance, but not on peeping Toms.
At trial, employee after employee testified that this multi-billion-dollar company, with over nearly 1,100 stores nationwide, does not train its employees on their legal obligations to accommodate customers with disabilities. On body camera footage, Mrs. Ford is heard saying, she will not accommodate Mr. Chip’s disability, because she is “running a business.” But part of “running a business” is following the law—and the Americans with Disabilities Act is one of those laws.
In a unanimous decision, the jury found that Hobby Lobby discriminated against Mr. Chip because of his disability. The jury awarded $10,000 in damages, and the judge will now decide what injunctive relief is appropriate. Chris Edmunds Law Office is grateful to his clients for being brave enough to stand up to a massive corporation and to the jury who said, loud and clear, Hobby Lobby violated the ADA.
