Judge Takes Self off Western Digital Case
A judge disqualified himself Monday from a lawsuit accusing Western Digital Corp. of sex and age discrimination, saying he knows a key witness, a former executive who allegedly joked about a “glass ceiling” at the company “so thick you couldn’t see through it.”
The action came a day before jury selection was to begin in the case filed by Winifred Strohmeyer of Long Beach, whose 18-year-old son, Jeremy Strohmeyer, is accused of killing a 7-year-old Los Angeles girl in a Nevada casino.
Strohmeyer contends her son’s behavior problems began in Singapore, where she says the company lured her into working as part of a wrongful-termination scheme. Jeremy Strohmeyer attended four schools in four semesters and was separated from his mother for months as a result of the transfer, becoming increasingly withdrawn and unhappy, said Strohmeyer’s lawyer, Peggy A. Garrity of Santa Monica.
At what was to have been a hearing on evidence--including how much of Jeremy Strohmeyer’s story the jury can hear--Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard O. Frazee Sr. called lawyers for both sides into his office Monday and disqualified himself, saying he was acquainted with one of the witnesses, former Western Digital Chief Financial Officer Scott Mercer.
Strohmeyer, a former human resources specialist for Western Digital, says in her suit that she had pointed out to Mercer the long-standing dearth of promotion opportunities for women at the company. Mercer and other executives ignored her suggestions, and he joked about the glass ceiling, the suit says.
The motions to have been heard Monday include one by the company to keep the jury from hearing such “stray comments.”
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Strohmeyer’s suit, filed 10 months before her son’s arrest, contends the Irvine-based high-tech company promoted less-qualified, younger men than her. She says women including herself unfairly bore the brunt of firings during a corporate staff downsizing last year.
The case now goes on standby through Wednesday, to be heard by any civil judge who has a scheduled trial fall through. If no slot opens up by then, the delay could be months before the trial is rescheduled, attorneys said.
Strohmeyer, 53, and co-plaintiff Barbara Anderson, 50, are battling one of California’s star corporations, which last month reported a profit of $267.6 million for fiscal 1997 on $4.18 billion in sales. Both figures easily set records for Western Digital, which makes hard disk drives, the central memory storage devices for computers.
Western Digital’s general counsel, Michael A. Cornelius, said the company has “nothing but sympathy” for Strohmeyer’s parental troubles but believes it treated her and her family well. He said the evidence shows the company offered Strohmeyer a good job but that she voluntarily quit.
Jeremy Strohmeyer is accused of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering Sherrice Iverson in May in a restroom at the Primadonna casino at the Nevada-California border while her father gambled. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty.
His mother left the company in April 1996. Western Digital filed a motion seeking to limit any testimony about Jeremy Strohmeyer to the period ending in October 1996, seven months before the slaying. That’s when Strohmeyer turned down a job offer from another company, saying her son’s problems made it impossible for her to work full time.
“To go past October 1996 would simply intensify the media interest without further illuminating the issues in the case,” Cornelius said.
Garrity said details of Jeremy Strohmeyer’s arrest are necessary for jurors to understand the damages her client suffered. “It’s a very, very difficult and sensitive issue. But it’s real, and it has to be dealt with,” Garrity said.
