A legal battle is brewing between former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and an electrician who claims the multibillionaire is responsible for a nasty slip-and-fall that left him with broken discs in his spine, according to a $5.5 million lawsuit filed Monday.
A Schultz staffer allegedly made Julio Guerrera and other construction workers go shoeless and wear blue protective booties to protect the fancy floors at his East Hampton mansion from getting scratched or dirtied, Guerrera’s attorney, Edmond Chakmakian, told The Post.
A picture of the interior of Howard Schultz’s Hamptons house, provided by Guerrero’s lawyer“They’re worried about smelly feet dirtying the carpet,” said Chakmakian, who filed the lawsuit on Guerrera’s behalf in Suffolk County Supreme Court.
Guerrera, 58, believes he has the grounds to sue the potential presidential hopeful over the June 2017 spill, when he was installing automatic curtains in Schultz’s private gymnasium at the abode on Gracie Lane.
He fell eight feet off a ladder, whacked his heel on a stationary bicycle and fractured discs in his spine. He underwent surgery in January and will require more operations.
“Had he not been forced to wear the booties, he clearly wouldn’t have fallen. They’re slippery by nature,” Chakmakian said. “We appreciate that Schultz has nice floors, but unfortunately, this man paid for those floors with his physical condition.”
The lawyer described the floors of Schultz’s sprawling waterfront home as “very expensive red Brazilian and mahogany.”
Photos from inside the under-construction home show a blue sign reading, “NO SHOES NO ZAPATOS PLEASE” — an anti-footwear fiat reiterated to Guerrero by a member of the Schultz household staff, Chakmakian alleged.
Guerrero’s daughter Melani said his life “changed completely” following the tumble.
“He walks like an 80-year-old man with a cane,” Melani, 22, said. “He’s frustrated in himself. He wants to walk normally and do daily things . . . . . . he can’t take a shower on his own, can’t leave the house,’” she said.
Guerrero, who also lives in East Hampton, told The Post in Spanish that he understands that owners want to protect their pricey flooring — but wishes the safety of workers was a bigger priority.
“I know it’s a house where everything is brand-new, it’s very big and nice, but you also have to wonder about our safety as well,” he said.
“It’s [like] wearing socks in a home. It’s not stable, it’s not grounding, especially around construction equipment.”
Schultz’s wife, Sheri Kersch-Schultz, said she and her husband had “zero involvement” in asking the workers to put on the booties and that their high-end general contractor, Bulgin & Associates, managed everything.
“I hope it gets worked out and they do their due diligence and it gets handled,” she said.
Bulgin & Associates, which is named in the suit as well as The Howard D. Schultz Residence Trust, didn’t return a phone call. A spokeswoman for Howard Schultz declined to comment.
Additional reporting by Lia Eustachewich
