A courtroom battle is now forcing Netflix and one of its production studios to answer questions about how alcohol shaped everyday life inside their offices.
At the heart of the dispute is Kevin Baillie, a former visual effects veteran who once worked on “Pirates of the Caribbean” and later rose to vice president and head of creative at Eyeline Studios, a Netflix-owned production company.
Baillie earned $1.1 million a year in that role before his sudden termination in April.
The firing followed a January work retreat where Baillie disclosed to colleagues that he had taken ketamine under a doctor’s care.
That disclosure triggered an internal investigation by Netflix, and company attorneys have since acknowledged that the so-called “ketamine-therapy issue” factored into the decision to remove him.
Baillie counters that the treatment was entirely legitimate, administered at a licensed clinic in Santa Barbara during October and November of 2022.
He says a doctor prescribed the ketamine therapy after his mother passed away.
Now suing for compensatory damages, back pay, emotional distress, and punitive damages, Baillie is demanding a jury weigh in on his case.
But the lawsuit goes well beyond the circumstances of his firing, laying out a detailed portrait of a workplace where drinking wasn’t just accepted — it was woven into the company’s identity.
Court filings describe alcohol use at company functions as “common, openly tolerated, and affirmatively encouraged.”
Much of that culture, according to the suit, traces back to Eyeline Studios CEO Jeff Shapiro, who allegedly “set the cultural tone concerning alcohol at the executive level.”
One specific claim stands out: Shapiro is accused of stopping at a corner store to buy beer before a company car ride to the Visual Effects Society Awards, then sharing it with staff during the trip.
That wasn’t an isolated incident, according to Baillie’s attorneys, who point to more than half a dozen instances where the CEO was spotted drinking at company gatherings.
Those events reportedly included Baillie’s own welcome dinner in September 2024, Netflix’s Annual Business Review in March 2025, and a February 2026 Lakers game attended by top Netflix brass, including Shapiro’s direct supervisor.
The lawsuit also claims Shapiro kept a personal bar stocked inside his office, using it to pour drinks for Baillie on more than one occasion — including a celebratory round after a productive meeting with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos.
Then there’s the handstand.
During the January retreat that ultimately cost Baillie his job, staff members reportedly cheered him on as he drank a Guinness while balancing upside down, a party trick he says he picked up from his father-in-law.
Separately, the lawsuit describes a company retreat at a Netflix-owned property where staff were essentially told to help themselves behind the bar.
According to court records, ranch employees greeted arriving staff by saying, “sometimes we’ll have staff serving signature cocktails, and sometimes you’ll need to tend bar on your own.”
Netflix has long promoted an unconventional workplace philosophy, branding itself around a “people over process” approach and what its careers page calls an “(almost) no rules rule.”
The same materials encourage managers to lead through “context not control” instead of traditional oversight.
Nowhere in those public materials, however, is there any written policy addressing employee alcohol consumption, according to the court filings.
As the case heads toward trial, both Baillie and Netflix are expected to present competing accounts of what really led to his dismissal.
