At approx. 11:30 am on June 13, 2011, I entered McNery & Voelker PC, Estate Settlement Services Inc. and explained that I would be relocating my family out of the central Texas area. As this business handled estate settlement services, I inquired if that was related to home equity transactions as we own several residential homes in the central texas area that will be consolidated and sold soon. The real estate is valued at approximately $500,000. It seemed unusual to me that this man was talking to me in a hallway, about financial transactions at this level ... and we are right in front of chairs and offices, and yet ... he had not offered me a chair or asked me to enter his office. I quickly recieved the impression the employee of McNery & Voelker PC took one look at the color of my skin and decided it didn't matter how much money I had. All he wanted was to get me of the office.
At that point I explained that I needed to use the men's room. I have a medical condition and it was immediately necessary that I use it. Often when you have a condition such as this you request to use the men's room, and you don't just start by sharing a private medical reason for the need. I am wearing a $15,000 Rolex, and it is immediately obvious based on my clothes that I am in a good place financially - especially for a man of 34 years old. Despite my simple request, I was denied access to the restroom. "Oh yes, he said, there is a restroom but it is not for people like you. If you need to use a bathroom, go somewhere else, IT IS NOT MY PROBLEM." Oh, is this woolworths in 1960, i didn't realize people with skin my color weren't allowed to eat sandwiches at the lunch counter. Shall I go to the back of the bus like Rosa Parks for you? Should a brief restroom visit for medical reasons for a documented disability be required to use the restroom at McNery & Voelker PC??? If you are not white/caucasian ... perhaps. Rather than take 2 minutes to comply with Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act, the employee of M&V PC suggested I walk down the street and use the bathroom elsewhere. It is an emergency. That is when the profanity started. F you It's NOT MY PROBLEM etc. Why would I trust a man so unstable and so impolite with a transaction as complex and requiring of finesse as a $500,000 real estate involving multiple properties? Why would i pay a commission to a man who discriminates against me?
As I walked out the door I explained I would post a YELP review because I felt his language was inappropriate and impolite.
I was immediately assaulted. The employee rapidly approached me with clenched fists, and I exited the door, where he followed me with an angry raised voice and yelled "F you, you MF Dick ..." Assault is a crime and is defined as when a person is in imminent fear of physical attack. Assault does not require physical contact, just the fear of (in the victim) physical contact. Actual contact turns it into Assault and Battery. He Assaulted me. Obviously there is no point in me wasting one dollar filing a private lawsuit against him for this as I can simply file a complaint of Title III violation to the Department Of Justice Civil Rights Division 950 Pennsylvania Ave NW Disability Rights Section NYAV Washington D.C. 20530. After all, denying me the right to a men's room for immediate emergency treatment of a legally defined disability is no different from piling cinderblocks on the handicapped ramp and demanding a man in a wheelchair "leave immediately". He has no more right to "throw unwanted customers out based on their disability" than Woolworth's did when they said African-americans were not allowed to eat at the lunch counter in 1960. Did I mention that I am a member of a legally recognized minority group of which the employee of W&V PC is not? So it is clear to me the type of clients McNery & Voelker PC wants, and I am absolutely certain that if I was a member of the same racial group as McNery & Voelker PC's employees, that I would have been given instantaneous access to the restroom. Because I was not, it didn't matter that I was wearing a $15,000 watch or how much money I had: my money was the right color but my skin was not. I had heard that there was racism in the South, and actually, this was the first and only time that I have personally experienced it. I have no need for private lawsuits ... I only wish to share the criminal abuse I suffered so others can know what really lives in the hearts of McNery & Voelker PC. I pray that they are all not "like that." I will never return to the doorstep of McNery & Voelker PC, so I suppose I will never know. read more