A former Netflix labor relations executive is suing the streamer, claiming she was fired for reporting two higher-ups for discrimination and sexual harassment.
Nhu-Y Phan was terminated 10 months ago, despite positive employment review, over what she says was “raising legitimate legal concerns” about Ted Sinclair’s discrimination against women of color Jonah Cozien’s “sexual harassment of a female colleague.” Both were Pham’s former supervisors.
In a 76-page complaint filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court (read it here), Phan, who is Asian American, alleges that her then-supervisor Sinclair discriminated against her and two female colleagues of Latino heritage by never assigning them to any of the Netflix series he oversaw, nor did he allow her to attend any of the meetings with cross-functional partners working on these series.
“These claims lack merit, and we intend to defend this matter vigorously,” Netflix said in a statement to Deadline.
Phan’s suit says she “repeatedly made verbal and written complaints about Mr. Sinclair’s ongoing unlawful conduct” from March to June 2022. In one complaint, she wrote to the company’s Director of Human Resources and Labor Relations, Marcella Nurse, that “Mr. Sinclair had a history of ‘microaggressions and micromanagements’ toward her ‘that I do not feel like he does to others.’” Despite that, the suit claims, “Mr. Sinclair continued to deny Ms. Phan professional opportunities,” and that “Netflix did not, however, take any action to prevent Mr. Sinclair from continuing to discriminate and retaliate against Ms. Phan by denying her opportunities that would lead to professional advancement.”
Phan says she met with Sinclair in September 2022 and that he “apologized and promised to work on his biases.” Two months later, “Mr. Sinclair encouraged a white employee, Ms. Bell, to take credit for work on prototype contributions to the DGA pension plan — an issue that Ms. Phan had identified and worked on for months.”
Then, on May 1, 2023, “despite Ms. Phan’s repeated complaints about Mr. Sinclair discriminatory, harassing, and retaliatory conduct, Netflix promoted Mr. Sinclair to the position of Senior Executive Counsel.”
In August 2022, Phan began reporting to Cozier, who held a director-level post. Some 14 months later, “Ms. Phan’s friend and colleague, Sharon Ellica, an Associate who worked on scripted Comedy series in Physical Production Management, confided in Ms. Phan that Mr. Cozien was engaging in conduct that Ms. Phan understood to constitute sexual harassment.” This included the much-older Cozier “repeatedly [inviting] Ms. Ellica to lunch, dinner, and drinks outside of the office” and “sent her direct messages through their office chat platform propositioning Ms. Ellica for more outings.”
Per the lawsuit, “Ms. Ellica told Ms. Phan that Mr. Cozien’s behavior was ‘weird’ and made her very ‘uncomfortable.’” Phan then urged Ellica to report Cozien to HR, which she did.
The suit alleges that Sinclair and Cozien retailiated against Phan by written reports that were critical of her. Later, after the exit of their supervisor, Cozien and Sinclair agreed that Sinclair — who no longer supervised Phan — would take over the scripted comedy where Phan worked.
Ms. Phan had already been removed from Ted Sinclair’ direct supervision after making repeated complaints about his race and gender discrimination and harassment against her and others,” the lawsuit claims. “In retaliation for her complaints against him, Mr. Sinclair conspire with Mr. Cozien to have Ms. Phan fired so he could take on the scripted comedy without her falling under his leadership again.
“Mr. Sinclair assumed this responsibility on August 16, 2024. That same day, Mr. Cozien informed Ms. Phan that Netflix was terminating her employment for unspecified ‘performance issues.’”
The suit, which also alleges wrongful termination, negligence and infliction of emotional distress, demands a jury trial and unspecified general and punitive damages.
