Two Wiscasset women are suing the Wiscasset Quik Stop in Lincoln County Superior Court, claiming the store fired them because of their ethnicity.

Phyllis Soule and Melissa Soule, who are both white, claim the store fired them after it hired two people of the same Bengali/Indian ethnic background as the store’s operator.

A lawyer for the store denies the store discriminated against the women. The store fired them “for good cause” and then filled the positions with other Caucasian people, Attorney Phillip Johnson of Augusta said July 5.

“So, the case has no merit, and we’re confident this is going to be dis-missed,” Johnson said.

The store has an anti-discrimination policy and does not fire people based on race, he said.

The women’s suit follows a December 2011 finding by the Maine Human Rights Commission that there is “reasonable grounds” to believe discrimination occurred against Phyllis Soule. However, Johnson said the store didn’t receive notice of a fact-finding hearing that preceded the commission’s decision. He also said the other plaintiff in the lawsuit had not complained to the commission, so he was unsure why she was a party in the suit.

The Wiscasset Newspaper has asked the commission for its investigator’s report into Phyllis Soule’s complaint. The newspaper’s attempts to reach the lawsuit’s plaintiffs and their Portland attorney Jeffrey Schwartz were not immediately successful.

The women are seeking an unspecified amount of money and court-ordered actions including antidiscrimination training for store management. They also want their personnel files to say the store discriminated against them.

The suit was first filed in late April, but the court received an amended complaint from the women on July 2. It has some language changes but describes events the same way and continues to claim discrimination.

The two women began working at the store around 2007. They claim that after Next Gen Retail bought the store in 2008, the store hired two people of Bengali/Indian background. The two new employees and the store’s agent, Seanue Anne, described as having the same background, had conversations that were not in English “on many occasions,” the suit states.

The day Phyllis Soule and Melissa Soule were fired in May 2009, Phyllis had told the store she had seen “raw meat that was going to be used on pizza that was going to be sold to … customers. The raw meat … was too old to be legally and/or safely utilized …,” according to the suit.

Later that day, Anne told the women they had to be fired due to the store’s “financial situation,” according to the suit. It further alleges the store later changed the reason to the women’s job performance.

As long as they had worked there, neither of the women “ever received a written reprimand of any type …,” according to the suit.

The suit’s allegation about unsafe meat is false, Johnson said. The store is considering suing the plaintiffs for defamation regarding that particular claim, he said.

The plaintiffs have asked the state’s Business and Consumer Court to pick up the case from Superior Court. If the case does go to trial, he would want it take place in Wiscasset, Johnson said.