Motorola Sex Discrimination Lawsuit to Proceed

A US federal judge has dismissed an application to abandon a sex discrimination lawsuit brought by Theresa Metty against Motorola. Metty filed the lawsuit against Motorola in July 2005, claiming that her dismissal as Motorola's chief procurement officer was based on her being female.

USA District Judge David Coar wrote that Motorola had so far offered "offers very few objective or quantifiable measures pointing to [Metty's] performance failings, and there is evidence that Zander and those below him attempted to construct a record or paper trail to make up for that failure,"

Motorola released a statement after the ruling, "We believe Metty's claims of discrimination are entirely without merit and the company will defend itself against these baseless accusations. We are confident that this matter will be resolved to our satisfaction at trial and Motorola's outstanding reputation and practices will be upheld."

Unless a settlement is made, then Motorola's Chief Executive Edward Zander is likely to be called to testify in the case. Zander's predecessor at Motorola, Mike Zafirovski, now at Nortel - reguarly promoted Metty, although Motorola claims in it's submissions that these promotions were unwarranted.

Metty was formerly was senior vice president and CPO for Motorola, where she oversaw all direct purchases, ranging from components and materials to third-party services and software. Prior to being CPO, Metty served as senior vice president and general manager of the supply chain for Motorola's largest business unit - Mobile Devices."

Posted to the site on 16th October 2006