MARIN, CA– Ms. Tabitha Totah was discriminated against on account of her gender and ancestry.  When she complained, she was fired.

In 2008, Ms. Totah was required to travel for extended periods of time to Europe with employees of a partner company of Lucasfilm. Male employees openly talked and joked about sexual matters and openly engaged in sexual activities.  Ms. Totah told Lucasfilm several times that the environment was toxic.  Soon after, her Supervisor Casey Collins criticized her behavior while consuming alcohol.  Ironically, the "counseling" session took place, per the request of Collins, in a bar while Collins was consuming an alcoholic beverage. Additionally Collins regularly consumes alcohol, as do other males in this double standard company, both during the work day and after.

On February 24, 2009, Ms. Totah was told by her managers in general terms that they had learned of accusations that in the course of business travel she engaged in inappropriate sexual activities with "partners." [i.e., employees of companies hired by Lucasfilm to assist in trade shows, exhibits and/or other projects]. Ms. Totah did not engage in any such activity and vehemently denied any wrongdoing. Despite her requests, Ms. Totah was not told the specifics of the accusations and her request to speak with Human Resources was refused. Ms. Totah considered the accusation to be discrimination based upon sex given the locker room atmosphere of the work place. In the meeting in which Ms. Totah was confronted with the accusations, she stated "If I were a man, this would be handled differently." After being informed of the accusations, her immediate supervisor (Casey Collins) made jokes about the accusations. This humiliated and embarrassed her.  Then on March 6, 2009, Ms. Totah received a Blackberry message while she was at the airport returning from her business trip.  The Blackberry message told her to call her boss, Collins.  She did and in that telephone conversation, Collins told her she was fired.  Collins and another manager later told Ms. Totah that she "needed to be taught a lesson" and that they "didn't think she could get past her issues."

According to Plaintiff's attorney, Angela Alioto, "the standards by Lucasfilm are clear, women get treated differently than their male counterparts."