Gender discrimination lawsuit against PlayStation has been resubmitted

A gender discrimination lawsuit against PlayStation has been resubmitted with more evidence after being dismissed earlier this year.

In November last year, Emma Majo originally submitted the suit, claiming that Sony Interactive Entertainment didn’t compensate female staff equally to male staff who did very similar jobs. The lawsuit alleged that Sony willfully violated the Equal Pay Act in the US. Majo filed a gender bias complaint to Sony in 2021, only to be terminated from the company “soon after”.

In April, Sony requested the lawsuit be dismissed “on the ground that the plaintiff alleges only unactionable run-of-the-mill personnel activity and thus does not plausibly plead claims” – a request that was granted by  U.S. magistrate judge Laurel Beeler.

However, the court also noted that three of Majo’s 13 claims had merit, and “may yield new allegations”. The ruling suggested involving the testimonies of eight women who have since alleged sexual harassment and discrimination issues within Sony.

Now, as reported by Axios, an amended version of the lawsuit with a narrower focus has now been submitted to a California court, this time seeking damages for all women who worked at PlayStation’s California locations below vice president level, rather than for all female PlayStation employees across the US.

The allegations remain the same – including claims women were passed up for promotion in favour of male colleagues, alongside claims of unequal pay and retaliation – but it now explicitly incorporates “more specific facts about the classwide policies and practices at PlayStation which institutionalised gender-based discrimination and gender-based harassment”.

Sony is yet to comment on the revised gender discrimination lawsuit.

In other news, Employees at Raven Software – the studio behind Call Of Duty: Warzone – have voted to form a union.