BlackBerry Ltd. BB-T has asked a court to throw out some claims by a former female executive suing the company and CEO John Giamatteo for sexual harassment, discrimination and wrongful termination, stating she was let go amid a corporate restructuring and due to her “habitual mistreatment of her coworkers.”
The company made the comment in a motion filed Monday with the U.S. District Court for Northern California to dismiss three of her eight causes of action against BlackBerry and strike from a fourth all references to “harassment and discrimination.” The motion is a legal manoeuvre to try to narrow the scope of the plaintiff’s action. The Waterloo, Ont.-based company has yet to file a statement of defence.
The former employee, a California-based woman of colour who worked for BlackBerry for more than a decade, is identified in court documents only as Jane Doe. She alleged in her lawsuit filed in April that despite being a high performer who won “promotion after promotion,” her career was derailed following Mr. Giamatteo’s arrival as president of the cybersecurity business in October, 2021. Mr. Giamatteo was named chief executive officer in December, 2023, succeeding John Chen, weeks after an employee anonymously filed an internal sexual harassment complaint against the incoming leader. The company says an outside law firm conducted an extensive investigation into the complaint and found no evidence of wrongdoing or violations of its code of conduct.
Jane Doe alleges she rejected an invitation from Mr. Giamatteo shortly after his arrival at the company in 2021 to travel together and work directly for him, and that they later attended a dinner during which he made her uncomfortable and tried to get close to her and woo her. After she reported the incident to Mr. Chen, she alleges, Mr. Giamatteo stopped inviting her to meetings and spread rumours she wasn’t a good collaborator. She also reported his alleged retaliation to the human resources department in early 2023. Jane Doe was terminated on Dec. 4, 2023, by interim CEO Dick Lynch, before Mr. Giamatteo’s appointment as CEO.
She alleges her treatment violated the U.S. labour code and California employment law, and told The Canadian Press in April that she decided to pursue legal action because she felt she had a responsibility to help and give strength to other women.
The company said in its filing that none of the plaintiff’s claims have merit. Furthermore, her claims regarding a hostile work environment, discriminatory pay and failure to pay her wages promptly “fail at the outset,” the company alleges, because her allegations are “devoid of specific facts” and “come nowhere close” to being pervasive or severe enough under state law or in accordance with past legal precedents to merit her claims. The company notes the plaintiff’s claim does not allege Mr. Giamatteo made physical contact, nor used explicit language, propositioned her “or even asked her out on a date” and that the alleged behaviour would amount to “occasional, isolated, sporadic or trivial” conduct and not prompt action under the law.
“These allegations are filled with falsehoods and mischaracterizations, but even if they were true, such isolated incidents are not severe enough or sufficiently pervasive to alter the conditions of her employment and create a work environment that qualifies as hostile or abusive to the plaintiff because of her sex,” the company states.
BlackBerry characterized Jane Doe as a favourite of Mr. Chen, who “sponsored her rapid rise” and created a unique position for her, but that she “alienated virtually all of her peers through years of rude and divisive conduct.”
It cited an example where a female employee took medical leave to address mental-health issues, allegedly “caused by the plaintiff’s abusive behavior” and another where a male employee quit “on the spot” because she insisted he work around the clock on a weekend to complete a project on an unrealistic timeline.
None of the allegations or arguments by the plaintiff or company have been proven in court.
BlackBerry said in October it would split into two stand-alone businesses focusing on cybersecurity and internet-connected automobiles, and subsequently cut more than 200 jobs. In its filing, the company said the plaintiff’s position didn’t fit into either unit “and she was a poor fit to be placed in a new or different role because she had engaged in a long-term pattern of antagonistic and demeaning conduct toward colleagues, leading to a negative and toxic culture that surrounded her.” She was offered the option to resign but declined, and was one of three executives terminated in the layoff, the company said.
“The allegations made by the Plaintiff fall well short of conduct that amounts to sexual harassment or discrimination,” BlackBerry spokesperson Camilla Scassellati Sforzolini said in an e-mail. “Our motion to dismiss various claims reflects the weakness in the Plaintiff’s complaint and represents just the first step in our comprehensive defense against her baseless suit.”
Maria Bourn, a lawyer for Jane Doe, said in a statement that “Blackberry’s new norm appears to be smearing victims and repressing reports of sexual harassment and retaliation. They performed a sham investigation into Mr. Giamatteo’s indefensible behavior, and now they submit a filing that doesn’t even tie to the law. It all amounts to more retaliation from a company that co-signed on the now-CEO’s ‘Mad Men’-era sexual harassment.”