September 6th, 2012Top StoryPC Gaming Studio Said She Ruined Their Game, But Only After She Sued The Boss For Sexual HarassmentBy Kate Cox
This August, two years after Elemental's disastrous debut, Stardock filed a lawsuit against former employee Alexandra Miseta, claiming that actions she took immediately before her departure were a major contributing factor to Elemental's failure. However, Stardock vs. Miseta is not the first time Miseta and Stardock CEO Brad Wardell have faced off in court—and the timing of the new lawsuit suggests it could have more to do with the other court case than it does with Elemental. Court records from the lawsuit show several troubling messages from Wardell to Miseta. Court records from the lawsuit show several troubling messages from Wardell to Miseta, as well as allegations of problematic in-person behavior. E-mail messages included in the records go back as far as March, 2008, and include a link to a sexually explicit YouTube video, a comment that Miseta was chosen to go to a conference "not just because you're 'hot'," and a 100-question "purity test" that he asked her to take and then send him her score from. The purity test includes questions like, "Have you engaged in group sex?," "Have you engaged in intercourse with an unconscious person, while conscious?," and, "Have you had anal intercourse?" Witness depositions included in the case documents refer to multiple comments from Wardell to female employees about their breast and bra sizes, and one incident where he asked Miseta to attend a media tour because "[her] nipples look better on TV." They also describe a time on a media tour when Wardell's visit to the hotel room Miseta and another female colleague were sharing made Miseta feel uncomfortable. In May 2010, during a dinner on a media tour, Wardell touched Miseta's hair. It was evidently the last straw for Miseta, who, on June 6, after the media tour had ended, sent her boss an e-mail asking him to change his behavior:
Wardell's reply began cordially, "Thank you for bringing these up to me as I certainly do not want you to feel uncomfortable at work." He promised to be more careful in the future regarding items one and two, but then continued:
Miseta took Wardell's advice: she looked for another job and left Stardock as soon as she had one. On August 3, 2010, she quit Stardock and began her new role elsewhere shortly after. Miseta vs. Wardell, meanwhile, has been making its slow process through the court system for the last year and a half. Discovery—the process in which depositions are taken, documents exchanged, and so on—took approximately 16 months. After discovery, Wardell's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The motion for summary dismissal, just over 250 pages long, lays out Wardell's case that the allegations are untrue and that, even if they were, they do not constitute harassment under the law: "In his response, Mr. Wardell also made some unadvisable statements, which undoubtedly is the raison d'être for the current litigation. While intemperate, and perhaps insensitive, these statements are neither sexual nor harassing. Mr. Wardell certainly regrets making them as even Plaintiff would not have had the temerity to file this lawsuit otherwise." Miseta's attorneys said that such motions are usually part of the process, and Miseta's lawyers then filed a response to the motion to dismiss. It took until this summer for the court to hear oral arguments about the motion to dismiss. On July 13 of this year, Judge Robert Ziolkowski heard the arguments and denied the motion to dismiss. Miseta vs. Wardell will go to trial, though a date has not yet been set. Wardell's reply began cordially, "Thank you for bringing these up to me as I certainly do not want you to feel uncomfortable at work." Attorneys representing Stardock filed the complaint of Stardock vs. Miseta on July 30, less than three weeks later. This second suit seeks in excess of $1 million in damages from Miseta, claiming that just before quitting, Miseta "deleted, destroyed, and/or stole" the Elemental marketing materials, analytics, and trade show information. Without that information, the complaint argues, Stardock had to spend "vital time" leading up to Elemental's release "attempting to re-create" the marketing materials, "rather than programming, debugging, and otherwise readying Elemental for release." Wardell did not reply to requests for comment from Kotaku to share his side of the story. If he does, we will update the story. (Update: see below) Miseta's attorney told Kotaku, "It is our opinion that Mr. Wardell's lawsuit against Ms. Miseta for allegedly deleting files, etc., is baseless and was brought solely in retaliation for her sexual harassment lawsuit. We firmly believe that Ms. Miseta's leaving Stardock had absolutely nothing to do with any failures pertaining to Stardock's release of Elemental. It is our further belief that Mr. Wardell has publicly admitted that the failures of Elemental were due solely to his actions and/or inactions." Many records from the first suit, Miseta vs. Wardell, cast doubt on Stardock's recent assertions. The defendant's motion for summary dismissal—the document filed by Wardell's attorneys to try and have the case dismissed—does make brief reference to deleted files, in the context of arguing that Miseta's claims against Wardell are spurious: "Stardock later learned that Plaintiff's last act while at Stardock was to delete her computer account, including all of the marketing materials and files that had been produced for Elemental. The deleted files also included emails from her Stardock account in order to eliminate evidence contrary to her claims of 'constant' harassment by Mr. Wardell." Witness statements found in the response from Miseta's attorneys, however, contradict the claim. One employee specifically testified in her deposition that Miseta gave her a week's advance notice that she would be leaving Stardock, so that she "knew where [Miseta's] files were" and had access to relevant Google docs. Others had no recollection of Wardell or HR manager Angela Marshall (Wardell's sister-in-law) ever mentioning missing documents causing trouble with Elemental. A former Stardock employee, speaking with Kotaku on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that a mere two weeks before launch, Elemental had many technical issues that had nothing to do with its marketing. The employee also added that at the time, nobody mentioned any materials having gone missing or any sabotage having taken place and showed Kotaku communications from Wardell that indicated satisfaction with how Miseta's staff replacement was taking over the review kit and review guide process. Both cases are still in active progress in the court system. Kotaku will be following any developments and keeping readers posted with any major updates. UPDATE: While Wardell did not respond to repeated requests for comment by Kotaku he did offer the following defense on the message boards of Quarter To Three after our story was published:
Complaint and Summons 12-30-10 Defendant's Motion for Summary Dismissal  |
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