Man files complaint against car dealership

Phillip Daggett, who received widespread media attention as the bartender on duty the night Jacob Robida attacked patrons at the New Bedford gay bar Puzzles Lounge last year, is alleging anti-gay discrimination by his former employers and co-workers at Route 44 Toyota in Raynham.

Daggett, who quit his job as a sales and leasing agent at the car dealership Aug. 21, filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) Aug. 20. According to copies of the complaint and an addendum filed Aug. 30, Daggett alleges a pattern of anti-gay harassment and discrimination by his co-workers and superiors that began in June, about one month after he started working at Route 44 Toyota. According to the complaint, which Daggett provided to Bay Windows, the trouble began after one of his co-workers asked about Daggett's former employment at Puzzles Lounge. When Daggett hesitated to discuss it, Daggett said that he was told that management and other employees had already learned all about Daggett via stories on the Internet. Daggett said that he provided his co-worker with a copy of a Boston magazine article about the Puzzles attack, which left three patrons seriously injured and sent shockwaves through the city's LGBT community, in an effort to "present a more accurate story" to his coworkers. Daggett said the article circulated around the dealership. Shortly after that, Daggett alleges in his complaint, colleagues and superiors made anti-gay comments in his presence, mocked him with limp-wristed gestures and referred to him with anti-gay epithets in the presence of customers, among other harassing behaviors. At one point, according to Daggett's complaint, he was made to sing the children's song "I'm A Little Teapot" in front of co-workers as punishment for being late to a meeting. He also alleges that his business cards were tampered with to read "Faggett" instead of "Daggett," an alteration that was pointed out to him by a customer. Daggett said he reported the harassment up the chain of command. After that, according to the complaint, colleagues began to sabotage his efforts to sell cars. After one thwarted deal, Dagget said he told a co-worker that he was going to the store to get a Red Bull, at which point the co-worker replied, "Red Bull gives you fairy wings! Fly away fairy!" According to the addendum to his original complaint, Dagget then left the dealership and never returned.

Tim Bruno, one of the owners of Route 44 Toyota, said in a Sept. 4 interview that the dealership had yet to be served with a copy of Daggett's MCAD complaint (an MCAD spokeswoman said on Aug. 31 that the complaint would likely be served this week). Bruno denied Daggett's claims of anti-gay discrimination. "We have three owners, one of the owners is gay. And we have several people who work for us who are gay. We have no problems with gay [people]," said Bruno. Though Bruno declined to discuss Daggett's allegations in much detail, citing the pending legal action by Daggett, he said that after Daggett complained to him that he was being harassed during a meeting approximately two weeks ago, he interviewed about 10 people about Daggett's allegations. Bruno said he found that Daggett was the only source of the alleged anti-gay behaviors. "No one has heard anything, heard anybody call him anything and when you investigate it back it all comes back to one person, Phil - creating this whole hoopla about himself," said Bruno. "We take sexual harassment very seriously, no matter what kind [of harassment] it is."

"We have an impeccable record," Bruno added, noting again that other gay people are employed at the dealership. "We wouldn't put up with anything like that."

In an email to Bay Windows, Daggett, who has retained Holbrook attorney Doug Suprenant to represent him, said he hopes his complaint causes the dealership to take such allegations more seriously in the future. He also suggested that because management oversees such a diverse staff, "I think it would be great if they had to go to a diversity/sensitivity training. Also that an inservice be provided to all employees on harassment policies and procedures." Daggett also wrote that he feels as though he is entitled to compensation for lost wages and punitive damages "due to the harassment, humiliation, and depression along with self-esteem issues this has caused me." He said he would not seek reinstatement to his job. "I have never been subjected to something like this before in my life," Daggett wrote, "and hope to God this is the last time."

Suprenant expressed disbelief at the actions of the Toyota dealership's staff. "If what I know is true and I have good reason to believe it is, I can't believe that there's such ignorance left in the world ... I really can't," said Suprenant. "Ignorance both that they treat people like this and think it's okay and that they don't know that there's laws that say you can't do it."

Daggett's complaint against the Toyota dealership, however, isn't the first time he's gone public with allegations of victimization. In March 2006, Daggett lodged a complaint with New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang against an EMT who responded to the site of the Puzzles attack. According to a press release written by Daggett and posted at www.Free-Press-Release.com, when Daggett asked the EMT where they were taking Robert Perry, one of the victims of Robida's attack, he was told, "Do me a favor, put your fairy wings on and fly away." Daggett's complaint came more than a month after Perry filed a complaint with the Department of Public Health alleging mistreatment by the EMT's who treated him. Neither complaint was substantiated. At the same time he lodged his complaint with Lang, Daggett also filed a complaint against the Fall River Police Department, after they refused to provide him with police protection while Robida was still at large unless he paid for it himself. Daggett, who lives in Fall River, said he feared for his life because Robida had pointed a gun at him during the Puzzles attack and pulled the trigger, only to have the gun misfire. And last December, he made local headlines when he complained to Fall River Police that he had become sick after eating an opiate-laced taco from Taco Bell. According to an article in the New Bedford Standard Times, police investigated and turned up no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Taco Bell. The article also reported that Daggett, who sought treatment at a local hospital when he became ill and was diagnosed with drug ingestion, had refused to cooperate with the investigation. The article suggested that with Taco Bell cleared of spiking the taco, Daggett may have become a subject of police investigation, though no charges were ultimately filed in the incident. The same article reported that in 2004, Daggett retained a lawyer and sought a financial reward related to medical costs from McDonald's after he became sick from eating a sandwich at a Fall River franchise.

When Bay Windows inquired via email about the previous complaints, Daggett responded: "[The] fact that there are witnesses supporting my allegations will prove each and every statement I have made about my complaint brought forward to ... MCAD against Toyota," he wrote in an email. "I would like to have not gone through as many things in life as I have gone through."

In response to a question about whether his history might leave people with the impression that he's "crying wolf," Daggett said that the facts of his complaint against Toyota must be examined "before prejudging a person. Nobody should ever make up their mind based solely on what the media reports," he wrote. "The media is there to sell their papers, stories, for ratings, etc... And they will make anything of a story so as long as they get what they want, ratings, readers, viewers, and ultimately money. I have never and would never make a claim unless it is supported by evidence and witnesses." Daggett added that he has not gone public with any of his complaints for financial gain, "with the exception of McDonalds, who all I asked was to pay my medical bills because of the incident, and they did." He further stated that the McDonald's spokeswoman who disclosed his complaint against the restaurant to the Standard Times acted unethically since "this was never a public claim and there were documents signed by both parties agreeing not to release any information about the claim publically [sic]."

Daggett was also asked to comment on the similarities between the "fairy wings" comments he alleges were directed at him by the New Bedford EMT and his Toyota co-worker. He pointed out that, as his complaint states, his coworkers were familiar with his background from researching him on the Internet. "It could be that this person had read this [press release], or that they have the same ignorant and premature mind and vocabulary," Daggett stated. "Many of the statements I made as well as online articles in general were later used against me in efforts to harass me and make me upset."

In the aftermath of the Puzzles attack, Daggett was an eloquent spokesman for New Bedford's LGBT community. At a candlelight vigil on the day after the attack, he shared a riveting account of the events inside the bar that detailed his efforts to shepard patrons to safety, and how Robida had placed a gun to his head as he re-entered the bar to help more people outside. "And this time he didn't have a bullet to get me," Daggett said at the vigil. "And that's because I need to stand here right now for my voice to be heard and to let him know that he is not going to win this. And that anybody out there that has any hatred in them towards anybody because of the way we are, they're not going to win this. We are going to stand strong, we are going to stand strong and we are going to win this. We will get through this."

The Puzzles attack was not the first time Daggett put his safety on the line to help others, either. A 2004 Standard Times article details how Daggett witnessed a car accident on Route 24 in Freetown, called police and then proceeded to rescue a 15-month baby and her mother from the wreck. A 3-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl died from injuries suffered in the accident. "I just wish there was more I could have done," Daggett told the newspaper.