A former in-house attorney at Nokia filed a lawsuit against the Finnish telecommunications company last week in federal court claiming she was fired for reporting alleged age and sex discrimination she was experiencing when she was passed over for a promotion.

Sharan Rene Boudreau filed suit against Nokia in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas claiming age and sex discrimination. Boudreau is seeking damages for back pay, mental anguish and other compensatory damages.

Boudreau is represented by Hal K. Gillespie of Gillespie Sanford in Dallas.

Gillespie said on Monday he and Boudreau are sad to have to take this matter to court, but previous efforts to mitigate the situation, including going through mediation, proved unsuccessful. He said Boudreau is unable to work.

“This is gender discrimination of the worst kind,” Gillespie said.

A representative for Nokia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. Nokia's counsel is not yet listed on the docket.

According to the complaint, Boudreau was hired as corporate counsel at Nokia in 2004 when it was Alcatel-Lucent. In 2016, she was offered an opportunity to apply to become the temporary head of customer operations legal and compliance for North America. Nassib Abou-Khalil, the  global head of customer operations, legal and compliance, did not hire her for the temporary position but invited her to apply to be the permanent head of customer operations legal and compliance for North America when the role opened up.

Boudreau applied for the role, but was not hired. Abou-Khalil cited her lack of managerial experience. She claims that others who interviewed her for the role did not express concern about any lack of managerial experience. She responded by indicating she had direct reports while working on projects at Nokia and acted as a manager at other times in her career.

She claims that is inconsistent with how male employees in the legal department were treated. The complaint cites three instances where men in the legal department went from having no direct reports to being promoted to manager positions. The head of customer operations legal and compliance for North America position remained open until January 2018 when Jody Bishop, who came from outside of the company, was hired for the role. Boudreau met Bishop through a video call before he started and said he looked 10 years younger than her. In the complaint Boudreau says Bishop became uncomfortable when she started asking about his experience.

In August 2018, Boudreau filed a complaint against Nokia with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Civil Rights Division of the Texas Workforce Commission claiming age and sex discrimination. Boudreau claims she was fired in October for filing the sex and age discrimination charge and for investigating and complaining about the discrimination.

“Having worked tirelessly and with a hugely positive impact (as evidenced by review after review after review) for 14 plus years, Boudreau expected to be treated according to her performance and skills, not her gender and age. To her great regret and despite her mind and heart's bafflement at it all, she firmly believes that this devastating experience has permanently disabled her from working,” the complaint says.