A SpaceX employee who is suing the company, claiming she became pregnant after being coerced into a sexual relationship with a supervisor and also suffered discrimination and harassment in the workplace, is fighting a defense bid to obtain more of her medical records.
Plaintiff Michelle Dopak alleges in her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that Hawthorne-based SpaceX paid her less than male colleagues and retaliated against her for reporting sexual harassment by a manager. She maintains management is “blatantly setting (her) up to fail” in order to force her to quit in retaliation for her complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination.
SpaceX attorneys say that because Dopak’s claims center on her alleged mental distress due to workplace conditions, the company is entitled to see more health records from Dr. Mya Zapata beyond what the plaintiff’s attorneys have already produced.
Dopak’s attorneys’ moved to quash SpaceX’s request for more medical documents. The aerospace company’s lawyers contend that the plaintiff wants to obstruct “legitimate discovery and to shield the very medical records that bear directly on the claims she has chosen to pursue.” They also note the plaintiff intended to include records of correspondence with healthcare providers as evidence to support their claims.
“Plaintiff cannot bring suit and then stonewall SpaceX’s attempts to inquire about the extent, causation and reasonableness of her claimed damages,” according to court papers filed by SpaceX attorneys on March 3 with Judge Tony L. Richardson.
Dopak’s attorneys described the company’s subpoena as”overbroad,” and outside the scope of the lawsuit. They added that she has suffered severe emotional distress throughout these proceedings.
According to the 39-year-old Dopak’s suit filed in March 2024, she was paid $5,000 less than a male colleague with the same job who was hired at the same time she was. She maintains she was repeatedly subjected to retaliation after complaining of discrimination.
Dopak also alleges a male supervisor convinced her to have sex with him and eventually promoted her to a scheduler position in exchange for continued sexual relations. Dopak believed her career advancement would be impaired if she did not comply with her boss’ alleged demands, the suit states.
The supervisor later offered to pay Dopak $100,000 to have an abortion after she became pregnant with his child, but she refused, the suit states.
Despite upper management’s knowledge of the pregnancy, no disciplinary actions were taken against the married supervisor, according to the lawsuit.
“It was immediately apparent that SpaceX had (the supervisor’s) proverbial back and that (Dopak) needed to remain silent or risk losing her job,” Dopak’s attorneys wrote in court documents.
In its two core businesses, SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches rockets and spacecraft and uses them to provide launch services to various customers located in various states and countries. The firm also provides high speed, low latency satellite internet to customers around the world using its constellation of thousands of satellites in low earth orbit and ground infrastructure.