By Kate Ragusa
On September 22, 2025, United States District Judge Sharad H. Desai granted Suns Legacy Partners LLC’s partial motion to dismiss several state-law claims brought by Andrea Trischan, the former Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion executive for the Phoenix Suns. The ruling came on Suns Legacy Partners’ partial motion to dismiss, addressing whether Trischan’s Arizona Civil Rights Act (ACRA) claims were timely and whether her negligence-based tort claims were barred by Arizona’s workers’ compensation statute.
Trischan was hired in 2022 after the NBA mandated that the Suns address internal diversity and inclusion deficiencies following a public investigation into the team’s workplace culture. In her complaint, Trischan alleged that she raised internal concerns regarding racially insensitive conduct and the treatment of Black employees and that she had encountered resistance in carrying out her role. She further alleged that she was placed on administrative leave and ultimately terminated after being accused of acting “aggressively” and failing to foster an inclusive workplace culture. After her termination, Trischan filed administrative charges and later initiated legal action against the organization.
In her First Amended Complaint, Trischan asserted federal civil rights claims, claims under the ACRA, and Arizona tort claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress and negligent hiring, retention, and supervision. Suns Legacy moved to dismiss the ACRA claims and the negligence-based claims under Rule 12(b)(6). The motion did not seek dismissal of Trischan’s federal claims, which were not addressed in the court’s ruling.
The court began with the ACRA claims, which turned on timeliness. Arizona law requires that an action under the ACRA be filed no later than one year after the filing of the underlying administrative charge. In assessing whether Trischan satisfied that requirement, the court relied on the dates alleged in the complaint itself, which stated that Trischan filed her administrative charges in July and August 2023. Based on those allegations, the statutory filing period expired no later than August 2024; Trischan’s lawsuit was filed in November 2024. The court emphasized that statutes of limitations under Arizona law are substantive and must be applied as written.
Trischan argued that equitable tolling should apply, asserting that she filed her administrative charges on November 13, 2023, which would have extended the limitations period to that same date the following year, one day before Trischan filed her complaint. The court rejected these arguments, first treating the filing dates alleged in the complaint as binding judicial admissions, declining to credit later assertions made in the opposing motion that conflicted with those allegations. Although Trischan’s complaint alleged that she filed administrative charges in July and August 2023, she later asserted in the opposing motion that the charges were filed on November 13, 2023. The court noted that Trischan provided no explanation for the discrepancy in the filing dates and therefore treated the complaint’s allegations as controlling when analyzing timeliness.
The court also found Trischan’s reliance on an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission right-to-sue notice unpersuasive. According to her own briefing, Trischan received the notice after she had already attempted to file her lawsuit. As a result, the court concluded that she could not have relied on the notice in deciding when to file. It further observed that even if equitable tolling were available under the ACRA’s limitation provision, Trischan failed to demonstrate diligence or extraordinary circumstances to justify tolling the several-month gap between the August deadline and the November filing. The court noted that Trischan’s arguments addressed only a one-day delay and did not account for the broader lapse between the statutory deadline and the actual filing date. The ACRA claims were dismissed with leave to amend, permitting Trischan to correct the filing dates if they were pleaded in error.
The court next addressed Trischan’s negligence-based claims, which it dismissed as barred by Arizona’s workers’ compensation statute. Under Arizona law, workers’ compensation provides the exclusive remedy for work-related injuries caused by an employer’s negligence. Although the statute permits civil actions where an injury results from an employer’s “willful misconduct,” Arizona courts construe that exception narrowly. Willful misconduct requires conduct that is undertaken knowingly and with the direct object of causing injury.
The court emphasized that negligence and intent are mutually exclusive theories of liability; conduct described as reckless, wanton, or even grossly negligent does not satisfy the statutory definition of willful misconduct. As a result, negligence-based claims arising from the employment relationship are generally precluded by the workers’ compensation system. This exclusivity applies regardless of the nature of the alleged workplace injury.
Applying that framework, the district court concluded that Trischan’s claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress and negligent hiring, retention, and supervision could not proceed. Although Trischan attempted to characterize Suns Legacy’s conduct as intentional, the court explained that claims pleaded as negligence cannot be recharacterized to avoid the exclusivity of workers’ compensation. The negligence-based claims were dismissed without leave to amend due to futility.
The court granted Suns Legacy’s motion to dismiss as to all challenged claims. While Trischan was permitted to amend her ACRA claims, her negligence-based claims were foreclosed by statute. The court did not reach the merits of Trischan’s federal claims, which remain pending.
Kate is a 2L at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans. She serves as the Chief Marketing Officer of the Tulane Sports Law Society Executive Board, as well as Tulane’s Junior Managing Editor for the SLA Newsletter.
