LOS GATOS, Calif., July 28 (San Francisco News Online) — A lawsuit filed by former Netflix executive Kevin Baillie says Netflix, Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) fired him from a role he says paid about $1.1 million a year after he disclosed medically supervised ketamine treatment during a company retreat — and then denied him severance worth up to a year’s salary.
The complaint turns a personal medical disclosure into a bigger business dispute. It raises questions about how employers handle sensitive health information, what happens when team-building exercises get personal, and how much a termination can cost a company in lost pay, severance claims and possible damages.
What Baillie says happened
According to the complaint, Baillie was vice president and head of creative at Netflix’s Eyeline Studios, the company’s visual effects division.
He says he had received medically supervised ketamine treatment at a Santa Barbara clinic in October and November 2022 for clinical depression after his mother’s death. Baillie alleges that he later mentioned that treatment during a January 2026 “vulnerability-trust exercise” at Sendero Ranch, a Netflix-owned property in Northern California.
The lawsuit says Netflix then looked into what he had said. It alleges that a Netflix investigator questioned him on March 18, 2026, “in a manner suggesting suspicion of recreational drug use.”
Baillie also claims that a company attorney later told him that “the ketamine therapy issue has factored into the termination.” He says Netflix fired him in April 2026.
Why the money matters
Baillie says he was earning about $1.1 million a year before the firing. He also says he was denied severance pay that could have reached another year of salary.
That makes the case more than a personal dispute. For workers, it touches on whether private medical treatment can become part of a workplace judgment. For companies, it highlights the risk that a termination can trigger claims for back pay, severance, emotional distress and punitive damages. For investors, disputes like this can add legal expense and reputational risk, especially when they involve a high-profile executive at a major public company.
What else is in the complaint?
The filing also includes a separate anecdote from the retreat. It says Baillie drank a Guinness while standing on his head after colleagues asked him to demonstrate the trick.
That detail appears to be part of the broader account of what happened at the retreat, but the core of the lawsuit is Baillie’s claim that Netflix treated his disclosure of prescribed ketamine therapy as a basis for firing him.
What is known — and what is not
The complaint and reporting around it do not identify the specific court where the case was filed. They also do not name the Netflix investigator or the attorney Baillie says spoke to him.
The materials reviewed for this report also do not show a detailed public response from Netflix. So far, the public record described in the complaint presents Baillie’s version of events and the company’s alleged reaction, but not a full answer from the company.
Baillie is seeking a jury trial and damages that include lost wages, emotional distress, compensatory damages and punitive damages.
For now, the case is a reminder that a workplace retreat can become a legal and financial problem when an employer says a private disclosure crosses a line — and when the employee says the disclosure was about lawful, medically supervised treatment, not recreational drug use.
