League of Legends developer Riot Games may end up paying much more than expected to settle the class action lawsuit filed against the company in November 2018.
In August 2019, Riot Games announced that it had agreed to pay a $10 million settlement to the nearly 1,000 employees who had participated in the class action lawsuit against the game developer. However, two California state agencies recently took a closer look at the case and made the determination that the plaintiffs might be owed closer to $400 million.
The lawsuit was originally filed in November 2018 by Jessica Negron and Melanie McCracken, one current and one former employee of Riot Games, who requested that the court certify it as a class action suit. The plaintiffs accused the game developer, whose employee base at the time was 80% male, of gender-based discrimination in both pay and promotion, sexual harassment, retaliation against those who spoke out, and otherwise fostering a “men-first” culture in the company’s California offices.
The suit came a mere three months after a Kotaku exposé on the sexist work environment at Riot Games. The company’s initial response to the accusations in the article was to publish a blog post broadly apologizing for the perceived behavior and promising sweeping changes in the company’s culture. Yet a full month later, although some of the employees who supported the toxic environment were indeed let go, many of the men accused of being the worst offenders were still employed at the company, including current COO Scott Gelb.
The class action lawsuit that came about soon afterward accused Riot Games of violating California’s Equal Pay Act, which prohibits employers from paying wages at rates lower than those given to members of the opposite sex. Citing that the company stifled the growth of women’s careers and denied them equal pay for equal work, the plaintiffs in the suit requested compensation for unpaid wages, damages, and penalties.
In May 2019, more than 200 Riot Games employees staged a walkout in protest of the company forcing the lawsuit into arbitration. And in August, the game developer announced that it had finalized a proposed settlement with the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit. The amount of that agreement was later revealed to be $10 million, which after legal fees would leave approximately $6.2 million for distribution among the nearly 1,000 concerned employees.
Fast forward to January 2019 and the pronouncement by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing and the Department of Labor Standards Enforcement that they opposed the preliminary $10 million settlement with Riot Games. The women, said the DFEH, could be entitled to closer to $400 million in back pay for wage differences and their lawyers had made multiple mistakes in overseeing the case. Negron and McCracken promptly replaced the law firm they had originally employed for the suit, Rosen & Saba, and hired Genie Harrison and Joseph Lovretovich.
Harrison is a women’s rights attorney who was involved with the legal actions brought against Harvey Weinstein, and Lovretovich is a California employment lawyer who stated that the goal of the new legal team is “to ensure these class representatives are getting the justice they seek.” Harrison and Lovretovich have now withdrawn the motion to approve the original $10 million settlement and want “expert analysis of the alleged pay disparities” before moving forward.
Riot Games expressed dismay at the withdrawal of the $10 million settlement and is probably disgruntled by the much higher amount it may now have to pay. The company stated that it supported the plaintiffs’ right to new counsel and affirmed that it remains “committed to working collaboratively to reach a resolution that reflects our commitment to move forward together.”
Source: The Hollywood Reporter