A federal jury awarded a 55-year-old Black woman and former employee of a South Carolina repo company a judgment of $3 million in damages in a racial harassment and retaliation lawsuit in which she claimed she was subjected to repeated racial slurs and spit on by the company owner during a jarring confrontation.
Plaintiff ShaRee Webb-Harrison was hired as a case manager in September 2018 by Associates Asset Recovery, LLC (AAR), a Florence, South Carolina-based business that repossesses and recovers vehicles from people defaulting on loans, according to her lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in South Carolina in August 2023 and obtained by Atlanta Black Star.
Racial epithets began flying early and often in her workplace at AAR’s corporate office, the complaint said. Webb-Harrison alleged in a deposition that she could hear white office manager Michelle Rogers calling her names including “ni—er,” “Black b-tch,” “b-tch,” and “c-nt.”
When she reported this to her white coworker Debbie Hardie, Hardie told her she would talk to owner Tony Cooper about it, but in the meantime, she could use headphones to block out Rogers’ comments.
In late 2019, Rogers allegedly called Hardie a “ni—er lover” because she “supported the decisions that Plaintiff made related to her job duties and performance,” the lawsuit said.
Webb-Harrison reported the slurs to management, but no AAR employee took any action to discipline Rogers or properly investigate the alleged discrimination, the complaint alleged.
Rogers denied making any of the racist comments when she was deposed.
Soon after she filed that complaint, Webb-Harrison was transferred to the digital recognition network (DRN) department, where she worked with tow-truck and camera-car drivers to assist in the repossession process, which uses technology to identify license plates. Her supervisor there was Lisa Frazier, who testified that she found Webb-Harrison to be a good worker and tasked her with hiring drivers.
The lawsuit said that not long after her transfer, Frazier told Webb-Harrison that senior manager Tammy Reason had admonished her that Webb-Harrison was hiring too many people of “dark color.” Webb-Harrison was subsequently removed from the hiring process.
Webb-Harrison also claimed that company owner Tony Cooper instructed her to modify the records of Black drivers so they would be paid less than white drivers, and that she objected to the practice and refused to make the changes.
In October of 2020, she found out that coworker Drew Andrews had called her a “ni—er” and used other threatening and offensive language in an email to Frazier, according to the lawsuit. Webb-Harrison complained to her supervisor and an investigation was conducted, resulting in a two-day suspension for Andrews.
Afterward, she said Rogers began criticizing her work and commenting that she “didn’t know her place.”
According to testimony cited in a report on the case by a magistrate judge, Rogers also allegedly referred to another employee who supported Webb-Harrison as a “ni–er-lover” and allegedly stated owner Tony Cooper would eventually “have to choose” between them.
The matter was eventually referred to a human resources manager, who testified that he looked into it but was not able to establish that it had occurred.
AAR management, from that point on, instructed Webb-Harrison’s coworkers not to help her with work tasks, to learn how to perform any additional duties, and advised them to speak to or associate with her, including at lunchtime, the complaint said.
Webb-Harrison further alleges that Rogers told her, “No ni—er or Black woman is ever going to be in leadership” at AAR.
At the same time, Webb-Harrison began receiving anonymous, racially offensive and threatening text messages through the company’s TextNow application. The messages referred to her as a “slave,” “Porch monkey,” “ni—er,” and “bitch.” Based on the messages’ content, she believed they were from other AAR employees.
According to court documents, one anonymous text message said:
On yo knees beggn when he done want you gone? Ya back actin like a slave. Pull yo head out it caus he want the ni—ers gone. It Fu-kin racial and you too dumb to see. He givin new guy yo spot dat don’t no sh-t. It all race caus no nig smart enough to manage. He start that boy dat don’t no shit at $15 hour. Wake up bitch.
The complaint said Webb-Harrison reported such messages to upper management, including Cooper, who did not address or investigate them. Cooper later testified that he could not figure out who was sending the messages and that police also told him there was no way for them to find out.
Things came to a head on June 3, 2021, when Webb-Harrison met with Cooper in his office to discuss her pay. She testified that Cooper had promised her a two-dollar increase in pay to take over her supervisor’s position while she was on leave.
According to the magistrate judge report, Webb-Harrison had been paid an hourly rate of $8.43 when she was hired, and had received incremental raises to $9.48, $10.00, $10.50, and $12.00 an hour before her employment ended.
The conversation became heated, and she says Cooper “approached her personal physical space until she was standing in a corner,” pinned and unable to move away, while he yelled at her using hand gestures, words, and threats that caused her to fear for her safety. She alleges that Cooper spat on her face while screaming at her.
Another manager, Shane Foster, who witnessed the incident, later testified that he didn’t see Cooper spit on Webb-Harrison but suggested that Cooper could have been so angry that he inadvertently spit on her while talking to her.
Cooper testified to a very different version of events, stating Webb-Harrison had approached him upset about financial difficulties and that he offered her a few hundred dollars to help with a negative balance in her checking account, and contended that the meeting ended with a hug.
The lawsuit says the interaction with Cooper “caused Plaintiff great emotional harm,” made her feel unsafe at work, and led her to immediately resign, which the complaint deemed a constructive discharge by AAR.
The complaint alleged that the company, Rogers and Cooper, racially discriminated against her on the basis of race and sex, created and fostered a hostile work environment, and retaliated against her when she complained about it, in violation of federal civil rights law.
It also alleged that Cooper committed assault and battery against her during the office confrontation when he engaged in conduct that placed her in reasonable fear of bodily harm and “spit his saliva” onto Plaintiff’s face “in a rude, insolent and vengeful way.”
She sought compensatory damages for lost back and future wages and benefits, severe psychological harm, emotional distress, anxiety, humiliation, and physical and personal injuries, as well as punitive damages.
After two years of litigation, the defendants moved for summary judgment, and in September 2025, federal judge Joseph Dawson III dismissed the claims of racial discrimination and retaliation, but found that her hostile workplace claims and the assault and battery claims had merit and should proceed to trial. The judge later dismissed all claims against Rogers.
During a federal trial in May, the jury found that Webb-Harrison had proved that she was subjected to unwelcome conduct by Associates Asset Recovery, LLC that was so severe and pervasive that it altered the conditions of her workplace and constituted a racially hostile or abusive work environment. The jury also found that she was harassed by supervisors and that AAR knew or should have known about the harassment and failed to take corrective action that reasonably could have ended it.
The jury did not find that she had proved that Cooper committed assault and battery against her.
The jurors awarded Webb-Harrison $2 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages, a verdict upheld by Judge Dawson, who also added post-judgment interest and costs to the tally that must be paid by AAR.
On June 17, attorneys for AAR filed a motion for a new trial, on the grounds that the verdict against the defendant was “against the clear weight of the evidence;” that plaintiff’s counsel had improperly questioned Cooper about four other named race complaints made by employees; and that the jury’s compensatory and punitive damages awards were excessive.
The motion said a gap in time of months between the racial slurs and anonymous text messages Webb-Harrison complained about, and her termination, is “proof the slurs were not subjectively hostile to Plaintiff. … The evidence revealed Plaintiff departed her employment over a pay dispute she had with Cooper.”
Attorneys for AAR further argued that evidence showed “Plaintiff not only continued to perform her job duties well but was on the track for management and very successful in her next role, proof the workplace environment did not interfere with her ability to perform her duties and thus, did not amount to a hostile work environment.”
In their July 2 memorandum responding to the new trial motion, Webb-Harrison’s attorneys wrote, “AAR repeatedly argues that Plaintiff continued working, performed well, and left after a pay dispute. Those facts do not defeat a hostile work environment claim as a matter of law. A hostile work environment claim does not require constructive discharge or require an employee to immediately resign from his or her position. Employees often endure hostile conditions because of economic necessity, professionalism, or hope that management will address the problem.
“Here, Plaintiff testified that she moved to South Carolina ‘for a fresh start,’ enjoyed the type of work she was doing, and left when she felt she had been assaulted. The jury heard Plaintiff’s testimony about her subjective experience. It also heard evidence of racial slurs, racist messages, complaints to management, and management’s response. That evidence allowed the jury to find both subjective and objective hostility.”
Her attorneys further asserted that AAR owner Tony Cooper opened the door to discussing prior racial harassment claims at the company when he said during his testimony, “out of the blue,” that he had ‘never personally experienced’ racial harassment, that he had ‘never been around it, and heard people act like that.’”
That prompted Plaintiff’s counsel to ask for a sidebar and “advise the Court that it seemed Mr. Cooper had opened the door to impeach on other hostile work environment complaints at AAR,” the memorandum said. The judge allowed Plaintiff’s counsel to lay additional foundation on the issue.
Cooper was then asked whether, in his 30 years of running AAR, he had a memory of any other complaint of racial harassment besides the Plaintiff’s complaint. “He answered, ‘no sir.’ At this point, the door was indisputably opened to impeachment on the subject of other complaints of racial harassment that had been made at AAR,” plaintiff attorneys said.
Briefings and oral arguments by both parties are likely to continue over the next few to several months.
An online article in Repo Buzz said the jury had delivered “one of the most financially significant employment discrimination verdicts the collateral recovery industry has seen in recent years,” adding, “Whether the verdict survives appeal remains to be seen, but the message sent by the jury is already reverberating across the recovery industry: workplace conduct, internal culture, and management response to employee complaints are no longer issues agencies can afford to treat casually.”
