SCRANTON — A former Hershey Entertainment & Resorts employee claims she faced discrimination and retaliation based on her race and national origin.
Sara Malaki filed a complaint July 22 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania against Hershey Entertainment & Resorts Company doing business as Meltspa by Hershey alleging discrimination and other claims.
According to her complaint, Malaki is a 53-year-old who is Persian, was born in Iran and began working for the defendant in 2000. She became a nail tech in 2002 and an esthetician in 2005 and in March of 2019, was terminated "for personal reasons," according to the suit.
Malaki claims after she was rehired in June of 2019, as a spa coordinator, she began to face discrimination from the general manager including making fun of her accent and talking to her in a "rude and condescending manner."
She further claims the general manager's actions were done in front of coworkers which caused her humiliation and that her "American-born, Caucasian" coworkers were not spoke to in this way. Malaki also claims the general manager "sabotaged" her work done on the computer to make it appear she had made several mistakes and that the defendant took no action to address the discriminatory conduct despite her complaints and instead took retaliatory action against her including termination.
Malaki seeks monetary relief, interest, trial by jury and all other just relief. She is represented by David Koller of Koller Law LLC in Philadelphia.
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania case number 1:21-CV-01289-SHR