Activision employee suicide was spurred by workplace harassment, lawsuit says

Enlarge / Activision’s publishing HQ in Santa Monica, California. (credit: Activision)

The parents of former Activision employee Kerri Moynihan have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, alleging that the harassment she suffered working at the company contributed to her 2017 suicide at a corporate retreat.

The Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, which was filed Thursday and was initially reported by The Washington Post, alleges that the hostile work environment Moynihan was subjected to during her time at the Activision finance department contributed to her untimely death in 2017 at age 32. That death, which the lawsuit says was ruled a suicide by the Orange County coroner, came during an Activision company retreat at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa.

The new lawsuit quotes heavily from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing lawsuit filed against Activision last July. That earlier suit is used to establish that the company “fostered and permitted a sexually hostile work environment to exist in which female employees were routinely sexually harassed, belittled, disparaged, and discriminated against, and Activision failed and refused to take corrective action or reasonable steps to prevent that harassment.”