Update (9-January-2025): On October 31st, a sixth former employee joined the lawsuit. She is designated as “Jane Doe 2”, with the first anonymous plaintiff now designated as “Jane Doe 1”. See the “Update” section below for a summary of Doe 2’s allegations.
This week, five former employees of the San Diego Wave filed a joint lawsuit in California state court against the Wave organization, asserting fifteen different causes of action. The National Women’s Soccer League was also named as a defendant on an additional claim of negligence.
The sports news website Defector was the first to report on the lawsuit and has an article, written by Diana Moskovitz and Lesley Ryder, that comprehensively summarizes the complaint: “San Diego Wave, NWSL Sued For Team’s ‘Abusive And Hostile Work Environment'”. Additionally, Jeff Kassouf has a brief article about the lawsuit on ESPN.com: “San Diego Wave, NWSL sued by five former employees”. The original complaint can be viewed and downloaded using the following link: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25196836/sd-wave-complaint.pdf (via Defector).
Summary of the Original Complaint
The five plaintiffs includes the Wave’s former Video and Creative Manager, Brittany Alvarado, who, back in July, posted on social media a statement about her time at the Wave (x.com) and was subsequently sued for defamation by former USWNT head coach and current San Diego Wave President Jill Ellis (USA Today). Alvarado also posted a screenshot of an email from what was later described as “a fraudulent Hotmail account portrayed as an official Wave account that’s been used to harass the club in recent weeks” (Axios).
The other plaintiffs are Kristina Perez (former “Events and Engagement Coordinator”), Victoria Diaz (former “Creative Services Manager”), Abigail Lozano (former “Community Relations Coordinator”); and an anonymous plaintiff, identified as “Jane Doe” (former “Senior Communications Manager”). Alvarado, Diaz, Lozano, and Jane Doe are all represented by the same pair of attorneys, who are based in Oakland, California. Perez is separately represented by a local San Diego attorney.
Jane Doe alleges that she was the victim of sexual assault and harassment by a now-former Wave employee who was apparently fired in July 2024 after the organization learned that “he sent another WAVE employee an unsolicited photograph” of his genitalia.
While only some of the claims specified in the complaint directly involve alleged improper conduct by Jill Ellis, the underlying theory of the complaint concerns Ellis allegedly having an “arrogant disregard for due diligence” in hiring and a “pattern of turning a blind eye to abusive conduct”.
The NWSL is only named as a defendant for one cause of action, negligence. According to the complaint, the league allegedly “failed to properly investigate or take any action against Ellis” after the release of the Yates Report and receiving employee complaints. The complaint also alleges that the league failed to properly protect Wave employees from the “risk of harm and injury from hostile, discriminatory work environments as well as inappropriate sexual conduct”.
According to the plaintiffs’ filing, the NWSL “received complaints detailing Ellis’s conduct as early as November 2022” and “conducted two separate investigations” of the Wave organization, first in 2023 and again in the spring of 2024. Per Kassouf’s ESPN.com article, the apparent fact that there was a league investigation in 2023 is new information. The 2024 investigation was disclosed by the NWSL to the San Diego Sirens, a supporters group of the Wave, who subsequently shared details of their meetings with NWSL representatives via social media (x.com).
The case number for this lawsuit is 24CU015619C. The San Diego County Superior Court’s Register of Actions website has a summary page for the case that lists the scheduled hearings and various filings. As of now, the only scheduled event is a case management conference on March 28, 2025.
Update: A second anonymous plaintiff joined the lawsuit on October 31, 2024
On January 6th, Defector published an article summarizing the legal claims of a sixth defendant who joined the lawsuit as “Jane Doe 2” a few weeks after the lawsuit was originally filed. The amended complaint can be viewed and downloaded via the following link: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25477145-jane-doe-2-sd-wave/ (uploaded by Defector).
Jane Doe 2 was hired as one of the club’s part-time “Ambassadors”. These employees interface with fans and other members of the public at Wave home matches and community events (salary.com job posting from January 2023). According to the amended complaint, a majority of the Wave’s Ambassador are San Diego State University students.
Jane Doe 2’s allegations concern her supervisor, who was apparently the same person that allegedly sexually assaulted Jane Doe 1. The supervisor allegedly made “incessant unwanted inappropriate advances”, including “sexually explicit and harassing messages via Snapchat”. Such messages included photos of the supervisor’s genitals. The supervisor allegedly reduced the number of Jane Doe 2’s events, which could qualify his behavior as a form of implicit quid pro quo sexual harassment.
About 16 months after being hired as an Ambassador, Jane Doe 2 was terminated under a policy that expected part-time Ambassadors to work at least two events per month.
According to the complaint, in July 2024, Jane Doe 2, who was now a former employee, spoke with the Wave’s new Director of Human Resources after being encouraged by a Wave employee “because Jane Doe 2’s experience with [redacted] was not unique”. The supervisor was apparently fired after Jane Doe 2 spoke with Director of Human Resources.
Jane Doe 2 is named as plaintiff for five causes of action against the Wave organization as well as the negligence claim against the NWSL.
As of January 9, 2025, neither the Wave organization nor the NWSL has filed a reply to the complaint. Also, the case management conference is still scheduled for March 28th.
The Fine Print
At this time, the complaint filed by the six employees represents only allegations of facts, some of which can be independently verified. Until the unverified factual claims are either stipulated by the defendants to be true or determined by a judge or jury to be true, then they will remain allegations.
The named defendants in this case, the San Diego Wave organization and the NWSL, are each obligated to file a formal response to the complaint. In this document, known as an “answer”, each defendant will admit or deny the specific allegations and can offer various “affirmative defenses” (selfhelp.courts.ca.gov) to the causes of action(s).
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This lawsuit is relatively complicated as there are six plaintiffs who are pursuing a total of 45 individual claims that fall under 16 different causes of actions. For each cause of action, there are specific requirements (typically called “elements”) that all have to be proven in order for a plaintiff to prevail.
The standard of proof in a civil trial is significantly lower than a criminal trial, where it is “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Under California law, the general standard for civil causes of action is whether the evidence offered is “more likely to be true than not true”. This is called the “preponderance of the evidence” standard. Sometimes a more stringent burden of proof is used, where it must be “highly probable that [a] fact is true”. This higher level of proof is known as the “clear and convincing evidence” standard. (See this courts.ca.gov Self-Help page for a summary. Definitions are from the California civil jury instructions, which is a massive PDF.)
For some of the causes of action, a jury may determine that not all of the plaintiffs have proven their claims sufficiently and/or that a defendant has a valid affirmative defense against one or more of the plaintiffs.
Causes of Action Table
The below table lists all sixteen causes of action from the complaint as well as the specific plaintiffs pursuing each claim and the defendant involved:
Text version of the above, with the plaintiffs for each cause of action:
- Disability Discrimination in Violation of Gov. Code §12940 et seq. — Alvarado, Doe 1
- Failure to Make Reasonable Accommodation under Cal. Gov Code §12940(m) — Alvarado
- Failure to Engage in Good Faith Interactive Process under Cal. Gov. Code § 12940(n) — Alvarado
- Racial Discrimination in Violation of Cal. Gov. Code § 12940 et seq. — Alvarado, Diaz, Lozano
- Sexual Harrassment in Violation of Cal. Gov. Code § 12940(j) — Doe 1, Doe 2
- Failure to Investigate and Prevent Discrimination and Harassment in Violation of Cal. Gov. Code § 12940(k) — Alvarado, Diaz, Lozano, Doe 1, Doe 2
- Hostile Work Environment Harassment Based on Race in Violation of Gov. Code § 12940 — Alvarado, Diaz, Lozano
- Retaliation in Violation of Gov. Code § 12940(h) — Alvarado, Diaz, Lozano, Perez, Doe 1, Doe 2
- Wrongful Termination In Violation of Public Policy — Diaz, Perez, Doe 1, Doe 2
- Violation of Sick Leave Policy under Labor Code § 233 — Perez
- Violation of California Family Rights Act (CFRA) under Cal. Gov. Code § 12945.2 — Perez
- Retaliation under Labor Code § 1102.5 — Perez
- Tortious Interference with Future Employment — Perez
- Wrongful Constructive Discharge in Violation of Public Policy — Alvarado, Lozano
- Negligent Hiring, Retention, Supervision, and Training — Alvarado, Diaz, Lozano, Perez, Doe 1, Doe 2
- Negligence — Alvarado, Diaz, Lozano, Perez, Doe 1, Doe 2
As mentioned earlier, the San Diego Wave organization is the named defendant for the first fifteen causes of action, while the NWSL is only a named defendant for the negligence claim.
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