Ex-‘Shrinking’ Assistant Director Sues Warner Bros. TV for Wage Theft and Sexual Harassment

A former assistant director on Shrinking has sued Warner Bros. Television and the executive producer of the series, alleging she was wrongfully terminated after raising complaints of alleged wage theft and sexual misconduct.

The assistant director, Mindy McKoin, claims the production altered her and other crewmembers’ time cards to reflect that they worked fewer hours than they actually did, among other workplace-related claims. In one incident, she alleges director and executive producer Randall Winston “grabbed and groped her left breast.” The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in California state court, which seeks unspecified damages, brings claims for sexual harassment and battery, retaliation and wrongful termination.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Warner Bros. Television said the “safety and well-being of our cast and crew is the Studio’s highest priority.”

“The Studio takes all allegations of misconduct and retaliation seriously and has policies and procedures in place to prevent, investigate, and address such concerns,” the statement added. “Once the allegations were raised, the Studio immediately engaged an independent third-party to conduct a thorough investigation, consistent and in accordance with those policies and procedures. Based on the completed investigation, the Studio concluded that the allegations were unsubstantiated and unsupported by any corroborating evidence.”

Winston didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

McKoin started in 2024 as a key second assistant director for Shrinking, a hit comedy following a group of friends and therapists that stars Jason Segel and Harrison Ford. Soon after, she says that she was shorted a day’s work. When she inquired about the issue, McKoin was told that production accounting was instructed to record her time that way, according to the complaint.

Beginning in 2026, Warner Bros. tapped McKoin as the sole key second assistant director for season three of the show. She later requested additional hours to be approved and paid for an evening of budget work that the production had requested, which was denied, the lawsuit says. That month, she says she escalated her concerns to Doozer Productions, the production company of the series co-creator Bill Lawrence.

Later that year, McKoin claims that she was confronted by producer Kip Kroeger about going to Doozer with the complaint. After telling Kroeger that her time card was illegally altered, the lawsuit alleges, she then told the production that she had prepared a wage-theft claim, adding that “other crew had been subjected to the same.”

The production responded by accusing McKoin of “speaking disrespectfully to the crew on the prior day’s tech scout,” according to the complaint. She claims she was fired after insisting that she be properly paid for folding a pickup shot for Bad Monkey, another Warner Bros. Television series, into the Shrinking filming day. McKoin was told that the studio didn’t want to “make a big deal” of the instruction and that the shoot was to be handled “under the radar,” the lawsuit claims. When she asked why she was being terminated, McKoin says she was told “different needs of production.”

Separately, the lawsuit alleges that Winston “reached around [McKoin] from behind and grabbed and groped her left breast” while she was seated at the bar speaking to another crewmember during a wrap party in June 2024. She says she reported the incident but that it was never addressed.

“Warner Bros. knew or should have known of the harassment — including through Plaintiff’s report to her direct supervisor — and failed to take immediate and appropriate corrective action,” writes Avi Gholian, a lawyer for McKoin, in the complaint.

Earlier this year, Shrinking was renewed for a fourth season. The show’s first two seasons earned nine Emmy nominations, including a best comedy series nod in 2025.