A crew member on Grey’s Anatomy filed a lawsuit alleging he he was fired for complaining about gender discrimination and harassment on the set.
Timothy Day worked as a best boy grip on the ABC show for more than ten years. In a lawsuit filed on Friday, Day stated he faced “a pattern of pervasive gender discrimination and harassment perpetrated” by the show’s director of photography, Herb Davis.
Via Via The Hollywood Reporter:
Day says in his suit that Herb Davis, the director of photography, exhibited contempt for female employees and “misused his position of authority to subject these female directors to verbal abuse and inferior terms and conditions of employment.”
The specific charges are for failure to prevent discrimination, retaliation and failure to rehire Day in violation of public policy.
Day says that Davis had a reputation for excellent work, but beginning in season eight, he observed what he says was Davis’ “antipathy toward female directors and other female staff who were assigned to high-level positions within the production.”
Day says Davis held women directors to a different standard than male directors and would “go out of his way to humiliate them by questioning their competence and making sexist jokes about them.”
According to the lawsuit, Davis called female employees “knuckleheads” and “idiots.” Day also cited several female directors who also complained about issues with Davis, including Debbie Allen, Allison Liddi Brown and Susan Vaill. Day stated in his lawsuit that when he tried to approach producers about issues with Davis, he was told they knew of the problem.
According to Day’s lawsuit, speaking out about Davis’s behavior is what led to his termination:
The result, says Day, was that Davis’ hostility to female staff grew worse. Day says he observed that Davis was upset with him for speaking out. When Day brought his complaints to Human Resources, he was assured there would be no retaliation for speaking out, but in the following season, his contract was not renewed.
The suit was filed in L.A. Superior Court against ABC Studios and Disney-ABC International Television. A spokesperson for Disney/ABC said they were looking into the lawsuit.