SANTA MONICA – A former Walgreens employee is suing the pharmacy store chain, alleging she was forced to quit her job because management did not provide her a safe work environment free from drug addicts and shoplifters who plagued her Santa Monica store.
Kentrice Benjamin’s Santa Monica Superior Court lawsuit alleges racial discrimination, work environment harassment and failure to prevent discrimination and harassment, as well as various violations of the state Labor Code. Benjamin seeks at least $500,000 in compensatory damages and unspecified punitive damages.
A Walgreens representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the suit brought Thursday.
Benjamin was hired as a shift leader at the store in the 1900 block of Lincoln Boulevard in March 2024. The location was plagued by “vagrants, inebriates, drug addicts and chronic shoplifters,” the suit states.
Benjamin and other employees “begged and pleaded” with management to provide more security and the plaintiff herself was “chronically threatened and attacked” at the store, according to the suit, which also states that Benjamin, who is Black, was called the “N-word” by the intruders.
“She would frequently end her evening in tears at the horrific and stressful work environment,” the suit states.
Rather than instruct employees to leave the shoplifters alone, Benjamin’s manager often asked her to confront the shoplifters and vagrants and tell them to not come back, the suit states.
“This culminated in plaintiff being attacked and assaulted and battered and spit on by a violent serial shop lifter,” the suit states while adding that Benjamin ultimately was forced to resign because of the work conditions.
Benjamin also contends she was not compensated for missed meal and rest breaks and that her manager called her on the plaintiff’s personal phone without reimbursing her. She also maintains that at the time of her resignation she was not immediately paid all wages owed to her.
Benjamin has suffered lost earnings and emotional distress since being forced to quit her job, the suit alleges.
