Two families have been awarded $750,000 after a jury ruled that the owner of a Virginia campground discriminated against them because one of the campers was a Black man.
Friends Amanda Mills and Angela Smith had planned a joint family camping trip to Lazy Cove Campground in June 2020. Smith, who is white, took her husband, Damien Smith, who is Black, and their 8-year-old son to join Mills’ family for the getaway.
Their plans took a turn after they got a phone call from the campground’s owner, Regina Turner. According to a complaint filed with the Virginia Fair Housing Board — first reported by The Washington Post — Turner told Mills, “You didn’t tell me that your friend’s husband is Black.”
“Had I known, I wouldn’t have rented the lot to them. I saw the son, but I figured everyone makes a mistake,” she said, according to the complaint.
According to court documents, Turner is alleged to have told another tenant on the campground that she wanted to wait until their lease ended instead of moving forward with eviction.
“I can’t make them move now because if I give both of them moving notices now, they could take my park from me. I’m smart, you know, and I’ve got to use my head,” according to court documents.
The Virginia Attorney General's Office and the Virginia Fair Housing Board filed a civil suit against Turner on one count of refusing to rent and two counts of discrimination. The suit resulted in the families' being awarded $100,000 each for their losses.
The jury also awarded an additional $550,000 in punitive damages, Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a news release Thursday.
“It was like a sigh of relief, but at the same time, I’m still angry because we never should have had to go through this,” Damien Smith told the Post. “It was 2020 at the time, and somehow we’re still getting judged by the color of our skin versus the kind of person we are.”
Miyares said his office is “pleased by the jury’s verdict, and I’m immensely proud of my Civil Rights Unit. The people of Franklin County have spoken: Smith Mountain Lake is for everyone.”
The $750,000 verdict more than triples the state’s former largest fair housing victory, which was a $200,000 judgment in a 2011 sexual harassment case, Miyares said.
Turner’s lawyer, Rocky Mount Mayor Holland Perdue, filed a motion to set aside the jury’s verdict, and the next court appearance is scheduled for April 8, according to the Post.
Perdue did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment. Turner told the Post that she never evicted the families and that, even though her late husband refused to rent to Black people, the campground now accepts “all kinds of people.”
She said she did call Mills about Damien Smith because she felt “betrayed” by not knowing he was Black.
