Whaddya know, the Suns are being sued for discrimination a third time

Once again, the Phoenix Suns are defendants in a federal discrimination lawsuit.

On April 18, an anonymous former employee filed a complaint against the team in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. The employee, who is identified in the complaint only as Jane Doe, claims that the team discriminated against her on the basis of sex and because she is Hispanic. She specifically says she was denied opportunities because of her race and was subjected to sexual harassment and inappropriate comments by other Suns employees.

The suit was filed on behalf of the woman by attorneys Sheree Wright and Cortney Walters, who are also representing two other plaintiffs — Jason Cope and Andrea Trischan — in separate federal employment suits against the Suns. In response to those two previous suits, the Suns have attempted to discredit Wright, whom the State Bar of Arizona has disciplined in unrelated cases.

In 2022, the Suns were also the subject of a blistering ESPN investigation into their toxic workplace culture under former owner Robert Sarver, who was forced to sell the team as a result. The three lawsuits filed by Wright and Walters claim that little has changed under new owner Mat Ishbia, who bought the team in December 2022.

Stacey Mitch, who is the team's senior vice president of communications and is mentioned in the Jane Doe suit, said in a statement to Phoenix New Times that Wright is pushing "fake lawsuits."

“Ms. Wright is now actively recruiting individuals to slander our organization for her personal gain," Mitch's statement read. "Ms. Wright has been disciplined and placed on probation by the Supreme Court of Arizona for unethical practices, which clearly defines her character. Attorneys like Ms. Wright manipulate the media and legal system and we will not be extorted by her shameful scheme.”

Mitch gave a similar statement to Law360, which first reported the new lawsuit. Walters and Wright declined an interview request on behalf of their client but offered their own statements via email. Wright denied that she is recruiting clients with vendettas against the Suns, while Walters emphasized the pattern of discrimination that their clients' claims allegedly reveal.

"We’re moving forward with this case not only to hold the Suns accountable, but to advocate on behalf of women, particularly women of color, who too often feel forced to silently endure mistreatment as the price of professional advancement," Walters wrote.

The lawsuit claims violations of anti-discrimination, equal pay and sexual harassment laws and seeks both compensatory and punitive damages. It also asks a judge to award Doe with back pay and front pay, the latter to "compensate for future loss of earnings and benefits" that she would have received if not for "the damage to her career trajectory and professional standing." Additionally, the suit asks for injunctive relief requiring the Suns to implement new anti-harassment policies.

What the lawsuit says

According to the complaint, Doe "was the highest-ranking Hispanic member" of the Suns' corporate staff. In the summer of 2023 — after Ishbia bought the team — she says she "began to endure an increasingly hostile work environment marked by unwelcome verbal and physical conduct of a sexual nature."

The suit particularly names former Suns executive Kyle Pottinger, claiming he "repeatedly abused his authority by
making inappropriate advances" toward Doe, scheduling lunch meetings with her only to turn the conversation toward "inappropriate topics." The suit says Pottinger kept mentioning his impending divorce, "strongly implying" that he wanted a "romantic or sexual relationship" with Doe, which "could result in career advancement."

Doe says she rejected Pottinger's advances and experienced "a clear decline in professional support" because of it. She also said the Suns did not investigate Pottinger's conduct. Pottinger, who left the team in October, did not respond to a message seeking comment.

The complaint also says that "agents" of the Suns — the suit does not define the term — forced her "to view a sexually inappropriate image" and "pressured her into discussing it." She says she reported it to her supervisor, who took no action. The same supervisor allegedly downplayed "blatantly homophobic comments" made in front of Doe as the team prepared for a Pride Night promotion.

More broadly, Doe claims she was subjected to discrimination over the course of her "critical" involvement with a multi-year, "high-profile cultural project designed to honor the contributions of the Hispanic community" that was ultimately nominated for a Rocky Mountain Emmy. She says she was never given a role or salary commensurate with her duties on the project as male colleagues with similar responsibilities were. Additionally, male colleagues were allowed to "consistently belittle and override her contributions."

Doe's conflict with the Suns came to a head thanks to an admitted screw-up on her behalf, though the lawsuit doesn't necessarily treat it as such. The lawsuit says she began recording her frustrations in private voice notes on her phone that were intended for her fiancé. In one message, she said her supervisor "was an ineffective leader," only to accidentally send that voice message to the same supervisor.

The suit says Doe was disciplined for what the Suns called her "rude" and "unprofessional" message, despite it "being a private and accidental communication." As a result, the suit says, Mitch restricted her media opportunities to discuss the campaign focused on the Hispanic community. The suit also claims Mitch "was widely regarded within the organization as a key participant in maintaining these discriminatory practices."

Mitch did not address the specific allegations against her in her statement to New Times.

Doe says she reported the alleged harassment and discrimination to the team's human resources department but received only retaliation in return. Specifically, she claims she was denied recognition for her contributions to the marketing campaign, which she says was "a clear manifestation of the discrimination she faced on the basis of her gender and national origin." When she authored a personal social media post highlighting her involvement in it, she says the Suns disciplined her, though the complaint doesn't specify how.

Doe resigned from the organization "due to the intolerable working conditions" in February 2024, a departure she says was "a direct result" of the team's "unlawful conduct."

Suns vs. Wright

While the Suns have denied the allegations made in the previous lawsuits filed by clients of Wright and Walters, they have also gone on the offensive to attack Wright's credibility.

In statements to Law360 and to New Times, Mitch pointed out Wright's record of professional discipline as a lawyer and claimed she is "actively recruiting individuals to slander our organization for her personal gain."

Wright indeed has faced discipline, landing a year of probation in January 2022 for trying to get a family court judge removed from a case over alleged racial bias "without a good faith basis in law or fact." In August 2024, she was given two years of probation over numerous ethical violations in dealings with three different clients, including failing to communicate with clients, failing to comply with a court order and disclosing confidential information about a past client.

Wright admitted the violations when she accepted the probation at the time, though she now says she disputes them. She has accused the state bar of having a biased disciplinary process, claims which the bar has publicly pooh-poohed. In March, she told New Times that she anticipates the attacks on her from the Suns.

“I know what they’re coming with," Wright said at the time. "They’re going to say, ‘She’s just a mess. She goes around starting problems all the time. This is what she does.’"

In that same interview, Wright said she has turned down other people who want to press claims against the Suns, both because she and her team vet them carefully and because her law firm, IBF Law Group, is small and cannot handle so many cases. However, she said then that she had at least two more clients working on filing lawsuits, one of which appears to have been Doe.

In a statement to New Times for this story, Wright said she felt "compelled to address what I believe is a deeply troubling and increasingly hostile response from the Phoenix Suns organization. When a professional franchise resorts to lies, ridicule, and smear tactics, it signals desperation, not credibility." Wright called Mitch's suggestion that she is recruiting clients with vendettas against the team "not only baseless, but defamatory" and said that she may pursue a defamation claim if the Suns continue to make such a claim.

"Let me be clear: our firm does not recruit clients," Wright wrote. "We respond to individuals who seek our help, who come forward with their experiences, and who deserve advocacy and justice."