Judge Limits Evidence in Western Digital Suit

A judge ruled Thursday that the emotional and criminal problems of Jeremy Strohmeyer, who is accused of raping and killing a 7-year-old girl in a Nevada casino, can’t be raised in his mother’s sex discrimination suit against her former employer, Western Digital Corp.

The ruling by Orange County Superior Court Judge Randell L. Wilkinson is a setback for Winifred Strohmeyer, 54, of Long Beach, the former director of compensation at the Irvine-based maker of computer disk drives. She contends that she suffered emotional damages because her family was torn apart by the company’s mistreatment of her.

It is also a setback for the company, which contends that Strohmeyer quit voluntarily and that her distress was caused by the problems of the son, who is jailed pending trial in a death penalty case.

Western Digital lawyer Dennis A. Gladwell objected that with evidence about Jeremy Strohmeyer put off-limits, he won’t be able to cross-examine Winifred Strohmeyer effectively. He said one problem area involves her contention that she is still so traumatized by her layoff 22 months ago that she can only work part-time.

“We would like to be able to ask, ‘Are you sure it’s not because your son is sitting in [jail in] Nevada?’ ” Gladwell told the judge.

Wilkinson acknowledged the problem and said the case in the end undoubtedly will have to be settled on appeal. Both sides already had agreed not to discuss the slaying and arrest in front of the jury, but he ruled that Jeremy Strohmeyer’s decline into drug and alcohol abuse and failures at school also were too emotional and far from the central case to be permitted as evidence.

“I’ve never had to handle something quite like this in my experience as a trial judge,” he said. “I wish I had some wisdom of Solomon.”

Strohmeyer and another former executive, tax specialist Barbara Anderson, allege Western Digital rejected them for promotions in favor of younger, less qualified men. They maintain that they were forced out in a “purge” of older women in April 1996, when Anderson was 49 and Strohmeyer 52, after they complained about Western Digital’s treatment of women.

The suit alleging age and sex discrimination, harassment and retaliation was filed in July 1996, three months after the layoffs. It was not until 10 months later that Jeremy Strohmeyer, then 18, was arrested in the sex-slaying of Sherrice Iverson of Los Angeles. The girl was slain in a restroom of the Primadonna casino on the California-Nevada border while her father gambled.

Offering an unflattering peek inside one of the major high-tech companies fueling California’s economic expansion, the suit portrays a corporate culture riddled with sex and age bias.

It alleges that the company tolerated crude remarks and wisecracks about when older women would die and refused to punish a man accused of harassing women and another who allegedly put prostitutes on foreign expense accounts.

Strohmeyer, who once handled federal equal opportunity filings for Western Digital, contends that as part of a scheme to force her out, she was exiled to a job with no support staff in Singapore and later offered an inferior position in Rochester, Minn. The actions came after she recommended the firing of a male executive who had been accused repeatedly of sexual harassment, she says.

The company contends that the transfer to Singapore was a career advancement move for Strohmeyer and that the job she turned down in Minnesota was a good one at equivalent pay and benefits.

In May 1997, giving statements under oath in evidence-gathering proceedings before trial, Strohmeyer said her son had been targeted for expulsion from the Singapore American School for being under the influence of drugs or alcohol during the spring semester in 1995.

The family was to have left that summer, but the mother’s Singapore tour was extended by the company for three months, then another six. Strohmeyer said she suffered rashes, diarrhea and exhaustion from a parasitic infection before going home and losing her job in the “purge” of older women.

Jeremy Strohmeyer had to attend four schools in four semesters and was separated from his mother for four months--events she maintains worsened his problems. In the end, she said, her confidence was gone, her son’s respect for her was shattered, his grades had plunged, and the entire family wound up in psychotherapy.

In sworn statements taken before Jeremy Strohmeyer’s arrest, Winifred Strohmeyer appeared determined to keep Western Digital’s lawyers from exploring his problems or the family’s psychotherapy sessions in depth.

In fact, her lawyer’s frequent advice to refuse answering such questions on privacy grounds was cited pointedly by the judge as a reason to exclude any testimony that would attempt to blame the son’s problems on Western Digital. Wilkinson said Western Digital had been improperly stopped from collecting evidence about Jeremy Strohmeyer.

*

The judge said evidence of emotional damage to Winnifred Strohmeyer, a key part of her suit, should be held to a minimum. He said he would have jurors evaluate that separately from the other issues during deliberations, and he said he would reduce or throw out any emotional damage award if it seemed excessive or if the plaintiffs had made too much of the issue during the trial.

While jurors will hear at most only passing mention of Jeremy Strohmeyer during the trial, they were questioned at length about their knowledge of his criminal case during jury selection. Several said they had heard about it months ago but hadn’t formed opinions, but one woman said she would be unable to judge Winifred Strohmeyer fairly based on the charges against her son.

“I guess I’d feel like maybe as a mother she wasn’t that great,” the woman told the judge, who excused her from sitting on the panel.

A jury was sworn in late in the day, then sent home with instructions to return for opening statements Monday. Wilkinson said he expected to have testimony completed and to hand the case over for them to deliberate by early March.

The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages in the case, which names Chief Executive Charles Haggerty and two other executives as defendants in addition to the company.

They had offered to settle the lawsuit for $3 million, but the company didn’t respond.