Street vendor attacked by former school teacher awarded $49K in lawsuit

A recent verdict in Los Angeles hopes to send a clear message that attacks on street vendors will not go unpunished and that there are clear legal and monetary consequences when interfering with an individual’s right to conduct business.

Last week, a judge of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County issued a default judgment against a former schoolteacher who verbally attacked a Latino fruit vendor in 2023, ordering him to pay $49,000 because of his discriminatory conduct against the street vendor.

“Plaintiffs or individuals who are harassed or discriminated against can seek protection under state law. We hope that judgments like these will bring more street vendors forward and get them justice,” Luis Lozada, attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the non-profit that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the vendor, told CALÓ News. 

Background

In September 2023, former public school teacher Gnel Frankian approached Sergio, a street vendor from Mexico who was selling fruit near the parking lot of a Santa Clarita gas station.  

“Get the f... out of here, you f... illegal,” Frankian told Sergio in front of his wife and child after he became frustrated about the traffic outside the gas station. Sergio recorded the incident on his cell phone and it later became viral on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, even getting the attention of Edin Alex Enamorado, a street vendor rights advocate who is still behind bars fighting charges that accuse him of assault, conspiracy, kidnapping and more.  

Frankian, then a Moorpark High School teacher, was suspended shortly after the incident from the school where he taught French. "Hate speech does not align with our core beliefs and values,” the Moorpark Unified School District said in a 2023 statement. 

The case

In May 2024, after reaching out to Sergio, and building the case, MALDEF filed a lawsuit against Frankian. The suit, filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, accused Frankian of violating California’s Tom Bane Civil Rights Act’s prohibition on interfering with an individual’s right to conduct business as well as violating the law’s ban on intimidating or threatening violence on individuals of a protected class, including immigrants.

“ I think we spent about a month just talking to him and doing some investigation to figure out if there was a lawsuit and what it would entail,” Lozada said.  

Last Tuesday, almost a year later, Judge Gary I. Micon issued a default judgment against Frankian, ordering him to pay damages anda monetary penalty, as well as Sergio’s attorneys’ fees and costs. 

“Threatening conduct based on racial and nativist hate is unlawful in the state of California and elsewhere,” said Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel. “This outcome demonstrates that hateful and discriminatory conduct still has negative consequences in this country for the perpetrators.”

Attacks on street vendors

Attacks on street vendors, many of whom support the local economy and culture in cities like Los Angeles, have increased dramatically in recent years. For many vendors, setting up their food and fruit stands under rainbow-colored umbrellas also means a possible threat to their safety and possibly getting verbally and physically attacked. 

Despite L.A. decriminalizing street vending in 2016 and legalizing it in 2018, many vendors still face various risks. The Bureau of Street Services estimates that 50,000 microbusinesses are set up on the sidewalks each year. Ten thousand of those street vendors specifically sell street food.

Although there isn't much information about attacks on street vendors in L.A. in 2024, in 2023 Crosstown, a nonprofit publication, compiled public data that showed that in July 2023, there were 43 reports of street vendors being victims of a crime—the highest monthly tally since 2010 and more than double the June 2023 figures. 

Phones and social media have been growing tools used to document many of the attacks against vendors but this has not stopped many from targeting them. “ I think because it was publicized and also there was a video of the incident, that kind of added more weight to it,” Lozada said regarding the recent case. “The problem with a lot of these cases against vendors, many of whom are immigrants, is that sometimes there's not that clear evidence.”

Lozada also said that many street vendors do not feel comfortable coming forward when they are verbally or physically harmed because of language barriers, their immigration status,  distrust in police or  law enforcement and more. “They might be afraid of calling the police because they might be questioned about their immigration status or even if they do call the police and even if they have evidence, let's say a video or a witness testimony, many believe the police might not do anything,” he said. “At MALDEF, we want people to feel a sense of assurance that this type of behavior against street vendors is being addressed, but also hopefully people are getting deterred from engaging in this type of behavior.”

In 2021, MALDEF expanded its work to address the rise in open hostility and intolerance aimed at the Latino community after the law firm began noticing the rise in street vendor attacks. 

“ Some years ago, we started noticing a rise of cases against individuals. People who are Latino, people who are perceived to be undocumented, and this could be, again, based on race, perceived immigration status, language and so on,” Lozada said. “We started noticing incidents of individuals going after Latinos [and] we started investigating these types of cases and decided to bring these types of lawsuits against individuals because many other law firms are reluctant to pursue these types of cases because it's a lot of work with not much payouts.

Frankian must now pay over $49,000 as a result of his discriminatory conduct. That is the original monetary request that MALDEF submitted in the case judgment form.  The judge granted the complete request.