Sacramento hotel worker says her fiancé died trying to keep her safe at work. She’s suing
Sacramento hotel worker Nicole Hart said in a lawsuit filed earlier this month that her fiancé died trying to do something her employer wouldn’t do — protect her from workplace violence.
Hart is suing her former employer, Extended Stay America, alleging that the company didn’t provide training or the most basic safety measures to handle dangerous and sometimes life-threatening work conditions.
Last November, while Hart was working, a man stabbed and killed her fiancé, Antonio Young, in the lobby of the Extended Stay America hotel on Gateway Oaks Drive in South Natomas.
Hart, in her lawsuit, said that Young began checking on her, sometimes sitting in his car in the parking lot, after she told him that guests had threatened her life.
“Extended Stay America relied on pernicious stereotypes ... that African-American female employees are ‘tougher;’ more suited to such dangerous environments; and/or accustomed to dealing with crime and violence,” Hart stated in her legal complaint. “As a result, Ms. Hart and the other African-American female front desk employees were regularly exposed to crime, violence, threats of violence, and gender-based harassment and violence.”
Extended Stay America, which is based in North Carolina, did not respond to two requests for comment.
As of July 1, 2024, California Senate Bill 553 requires employers to establish, implement, and maintain a workplace violence prevention plan, said Kate O’Hara, an advocate for low-wage workers, but not all have done so. O’Hara said she hopes lawmakers and regulators will engage workers to determine how to get employers to address unsafe working conditions.
“The unfortunate and very challenging reality is that even when we’re able to pass really great laws related to improving the quality of jobs and the safety of jobs, whether that’s on these kind of workplace safety plans or even basic things like the minimum wage, it’s actually pretty easy for employers to not follow those laws, and there’s a high need for more enforcement and implementation of these laws,” said O’Hara, the executive director of East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy.
Worker alleges ‘intentional infliction of emotional distress’
Hart, a Sacramento resident in her 40s, listed multiple reasons for her complaint, including wrongful termination; discrimination based on race and gender; hostile work environment based on race and gender; failure to prevent discrimination and harassment; intentional infliction of emotional distress; failure to reimburse business expenses; and failure to pay minimum wage, overtime and all wages due upon termination. She is seeking payment of her attorney’s fees and damages.
In February 2023, Hart said, Extended Stay America South Natomas hired her to work as a housekeeping attendant for $15.50 an hour. In August that same year, her employer transferred her to the position of night guest laundry attendant at a wage of $16.50 an hour. In this post, she was required to staff the front desk.
Hart’s complaint said that, during her employment, she and other African Americans working the hotel’s front desk regularly were exposed to crime, violence, threats of violence, and gender-based, harassment and violence.
As part of her daily work, Hart was required to log such incidents, the lawsuit noted, and managers also could check footage from security cameras on the property Hart’s lawsuit alleged drug dealing and prostitution were common on the property, and it stated there were at least three robberies there during her tenure.
During a party thrown by one guest, she said, gunshots were fired, causing everyone to panic and flee the hotel in a frenzy.
She said a long-term male guest at the South Natomas hotel routinely threatened to kill Hart and other African American female employees who worked the front desk.
A different male guest was stabbed multiple times, Hart said, and her supervisors told her to clean up the bloodied crime scene, though they had never trained her in properly removing or handling bodily fluids.
Another guest flooded his bathroom, threatening to electrocute himself with a blow dryer and causing water to flood the room below, Hart said.
She said she called police more than 30 times to report criminal activity, and on several occasions, responding officers told her the hotel should hire a security guard. On many occasions, she said, she waited alone until police arrived.
Hart said she repeatedly told her employer she didn’t feel safe and requested that the company contract for 24-hour, on-site security.
Extended Stay America provided unarmed security guards at the South Natomas hotel from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, Hart said, but the company employed significantly stronger safety measures at other hotels in the region that reported fewer incidents of crime.
Front-desk employees at those other properties, who were not predominantly African American in number, could call upon a 24-hour, on-site security guard, Hart said.
Plaintiff says employer acted only after her fiancé died
When she told her employer about threats to her life, her employer suggested she lock herself in the back room, according to the lawsuit, but there was no lock or door handle on that office. Only after her fiancé was killed, Hart said, did her employer install a lock and door handle.
Julia Parish, a senior staff attorney at Legal Aid at Work, has represented hundreds of low-wage workers around California in their lawsuits against employers. In her experience, she said, she’s found that workers will “routinely endure” threats to their personal safety because they’re afraid of losing their income, their shelter and their food.
Low-wage workers often are desperate to keep whatever jobs they find, Parish said.
Nov. 10, 2024 was a Sunday, Hart said in her lawsuit, and she was the only employee on duty in the evening when a man who appeared to be intoxicated entered the hotel and demanded entry to a room. Hotel policy, she explained, prohibited employees from letting people enter rooms if they are not listed as a guest.
The man grew enraged, Hart said, so she called police for assistance. While she was on the phone, her fiancé arrived to drop off food for her.
As he was doing so, the man stabbed Hart’s fiancé in the neck, according to the lawsuit, and when Hart realized what had happened, she “tried to stop the bleeding with bed sheets and towels in the front desk area — but there was so much blood that it made no difference.”
Her fiancé was transported to a hospital, she said, but she learned at around 2 a.m. the following day that he had died. Hart said she never could bring herself to return to the property.
Hart’s attorneys, in a telephone interview, said their client’s employer had offered her counseling but stipulated that she must come to the hotel to meet the therapist. Hart was terminated Dec. 2, according to the lawsuit.
The court record stated that she has suffered and continues to suffer anxiety, embarrassment, humiliation, shame, insomnia, depression, loss of self-esteem, loss of enjoyment of life, financial distress, emotional distress and other physical ailments and that she has incurred expenses for medical treatment.
Hart also alleged in her suit that her employer also failed at times to pay her the minimum wage and overtime pay and that she was required to use her own mobile phone at work without reimbursement.
Hart and her legal team — attorneys Kyung Finley of Sacramento and Renee Amador of Agoura Hills — said in the complaint that they also plan to file a whistleblower action, suing on behalf of the state of California to recover civil penalties for labor code violations. They would seek penalties not only for Hart but also for other hotel employees.
