A new chapter in the Riot Games legal drama has begun to be written. In August 2019, the class action discrimination lawsuit filed against Riot Games was settled to the tune of a $10 million settlement. Normally that’s case closed, but California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) and Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) claimed the figure should be much, much higher – as much as $400M – and filed their own case against the settlement amount.
A judge was scheduled to rule on the validity of this intervention by the DFEH and DLSE, but the case has since been pushed back to a later unconfirmed date. In the meantime, class action representatives Melanie McCracken, Jessica Negron, and Gabriela Downie have obtained new legal counsel in the form of women’s rights attorney Genie Harrison and have withdrawn the $10 million settlement agreement.
Genie Harrison is the very same lawyer who brought action against the Weinstein Company in the wake of the #MeToo movement. She is joined by plaintiffs’ employment lawyer Joseph Lovretovich. Both are now seeking expert analysis to determine a more appropriate figure for the settlement. “Our well-qualified statisticians are already analyzing pay data,” says Harrison. “We intend to recover the compensation due to the women of Riot Games and achieve institutional reform, in order to level the playing field for women.”
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