Activision fails to shut down California Civil Rights Department's lawsuit
Activision Blizzard's two major legal efforts to shut down the State of California's lawsuit against the company for allegedly fostering a culture of sexual harassment, abuse, and toxicity have been denied by a federal judge.
The legal decisions were first spotted by Axios, which detailed how Superior Court Judge Timothy Patrick Dillon denied Activision Blizzard a quick end to the lawsuit filed by the California Civil Rights Division (CRD) in 2021. California's Civil Rights Division filed the lawsuit while it was called the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, or DFEH for short.
After Activision Blizzard responded to the lawsuit with defiance, current and former employees at the company began sharing stories about their experiences and expressing outrage at the company's stance. A year of controversy and walkouts would follow.
Dillon made two notable rulings on this case. On August 10, he denied a request by Activision Blizzard for summary judgment. The Call of Duty and World of Warcraft publisher had claimed that the CRD rushed its case to court to get ahead of a lawsuit filed in federal court by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
On August 16, Dillon denied a request from Activision Blizzard to acquire more records from the CRD regarding its employment of lawyers who'd previously worked on the EEOC's case against the publisher.
Activision Blizzard has made multiple public comments about how the overlap in legal representatives was a potentially disqualifying ethics violation. According to Dillon, the ethics rules in question were written to address lawyers who switched sides during a lawsuit, or prosecuted a case after moving from public practice to private practice.
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