‘Hostile work environment’ at Activision Blizzard led to employee suicide, lawsuit says

Activision Blizzard, the California-based video game company best known for the “Call of Duty” and “World of Warcraft” franchises, is being sued by the parents of a former employee over their daughter’s suicide.

The complaint, filed March 3 by Paul and Janet Moynihan, accuses the company of fostering and permitting “a sexually hostile work environment” in which female employees, including their daughter Kerri Moynihan, were “sexually harassed, belittled, disparaged and discriminated against.”

The lawsuit also accuses the company of failing to prevent harassment and argues that the behavior was a “substantial factor” that contributed to Kerri Moynihan’s death.

The lawsuit seeks damages “in no event less than $1.0 million.”

The company addressed the lawsuit in an emailed statement to McClatchy News, saying that Activision Blizzard employees “were, and continue to be, deeply saddened by the tragic death of Ms. Moynihan, who was a valued member of the company.”

“We will address the complaint through the legal process as appropriate, and out of respect for the family we have no further comment at this time,” the statement said.

The Moynihans’ attorneys declined to comment further on the lawsuit.

According to the complaint, Kerri Moynihan was a 32-year-old accountant and finance manager who had worked for the company for six years at the time of her death. She died on April 27, 2017, while attending a work retreat at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa in Anaheim, California, the complaint said.

The complaint says Kerri Moynihan’s suicide during the trip was “due to a sexual relationship that she had been having with her male supervisor,” and that another employee confirmed she may have also been subjected to sexual harassment before her death.

The lawsuit says the male supervisor initially lied to investigators about having a sexual relationship with Kerri Moynihan and says the company refused to turn his or Moynihan’s work-issued laptops over to investigators.

Police also said in a report that he made “seemingly unusual inquiries with other employees who were present with [Kerri] the night preceding her death,” and that he went to her apartment to clean and remove items from it after her death, the lawsuit says.

Evidence of the “brutal workplace sexual harassment” and discrimination women faced at the company began to emerge four years after Kerri Moynihan’s death, the complaint says. Until then, the Moynihans were not aware of the harassment their daughter may have faced, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit references another case filed in July 2021, in which the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing also sued the company over accusations of workplace sexual harassment and discrimination.

That lawsuit called out a “pervasive ‘frat boy’ workplace culture that continues to thrive” at Activision Blizzard, the Moynihans’ complaint says. That culture included subjecting women to “cube crawls,” or events where male employees would drink “copious amounts of alcohol” and “crawl” through various cubicles in the office to “engage in inappropriate behavior toward female employees,” the Moynihans’ complaint says.

The DFEH also accused male employees at the company of “proudly” coming into work hungover, playing video games for long periods of time while ”delegating their responsibilities to female employees,” engaging in “banter” about their sexual encounters, talking ”openly about female bodies” and joking about rape, the Moynihans’ complaint said.

This behavior led to an environment where female employees had to “continually fend off unwanted sexual comments and advances by their male co-workers and supervisors and being groped at the ‘cube crawls’ and other company events,” the DFEH complaint said, adding that “high-ranking executives and creators” also engaged in the behavior, according to the Moynihans’ complaint.

The DFEH complaint mentioned the harassment against Kerri Moynihan without naming her, including by detailing an incident in which male employees at the company passed around a nude photo of her at a holiday party.

When the DFEH lawsuit was filed, Activision Blizzard said the accusations were “distorted, and in many cases false,” The Verge reported. The company also said Kerri Moynihan’s death had “no bearing” on the case, The Washington Post reported.

“We are sickened by the reprehensible conduct of the DFEH to drag into the complaint the tragic suicide of an employee whose passing has no bearing whatsoever on this case and with no regard for her grieving family,” the company said, according to The Washington Post.

In their own complaint, the Moynihans also accuse the company of resorting to “extraordinary efforts to suppress and cover up evidence” of sexual misconduct, including “by shredding documents and victim complaints and engaging in secret settlements with victims.”

The Moynihans’ lawsuit cites another lawsuit filed against Activision Blizzard by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which also accused the company of permitting “widespread sexual harassment” of female employees, of failing to “take corrective and preventative measures” and of “[retaliating] against victims who complained to management.”

In that complaint, the EEOC said that employees were “subjected [to] sexual harassment that was severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment,” and that the company “knew or should have known of the sexual harassment of the adversely affected employees,” according to the Moynihans’ complaint.

The Moynihans’ lawsuit adds to the ongoing battles over sexual harassment and discrimination the company is already embroiled in due to past lawsuits, The Washington Post reported. The company is one of the world’s largest gaming companies and was sold to Microsoft in a $68.7 billion deal on Jan. 18, The Verge reported.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment from McClatchy News. The Anaheim Police Department said in a statement that “our sympathies go out to the Moynihan family on their loss. We stand by our investigation and its findings.”

This story was originally published March 7, 2022 at 3:13 PM with the headline "‘Hostile work environment’ at Activision Blizzard led to employee suicide, lawsuit says."