Top Silicon Valley firm cleared in landmark sex bias case
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 28 March, 2015, 11:27am
UPDATED : Saturday, 28 March, 2015, 11:27am
Agence France-Presse in San Francisco
Ellen Pao, who is now interim chief of social news site Reddit, claimed she was fired for complaining about bias at the Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Photo: Bloomberg
A California jury rejected charges of gender discrimination against a prominent venture capital firm on Friday in a case seen as a proxy trial of Silicon Valley sex bias.
The state court jury found Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (KPCB) did not discriminate against Ellen Pao, who claimed she was fired after complaining about bias at the firm that notably backed Amazon, Facebook and Google.
“It never occurred to me for a second that a careful and attentive jury like this would find discrimination or retaliation,” KPCB lawyer Lynne Hermle said after stepping victorious from the courtroom.
Jurors deliberated for slightly more than two days before handing a victory to the iconic Silicon Valley venture capital firm.
“We hammered out all the little things … nitpicked and whittled them down as best we could,” said juror Marshalette Ramsey, adding the panel repeatedly went over displays entered as evidence.
“We did the best we could with the facts we had.”
Ramsey noted she was on Pao’s side in the jury room, saying it appeared to her that even when criticisms in job reviews cited similar character traits, men were promoted but women were not.
Pao’s lawyers painted the 45-year-old woman as an innocent victim of sexual discrimination common at the esteemed venture capital firm.
But KPCB attorneys sought to portray Pao as a calculating schemer burning with resentment and with a thirst for a quick buck.
“If I have helped to level the playing field for woman and minorities in venture capital, then the battle was worth it,” Pao told reporters outside the courtroom.
Pao asked the jury to order KPCB to pay US$16 million in money she would have made if she wasn’t fired from the firm in 2012. Pao is now the interim chief of social news site Reddit.
On each question regarding whether Pao’s gender was a “substantial motivating reason” for her being passed over for promotion and eventually fired, a requisite two-thirds or more of the jury voted “No.”
Those votes mean Pao is not in line to get any money in the form of missed compensation or eligible for punitive damages.
The gender discrimination trial pitted an iconic venture capital firm against an employee shown the door not long after her affair with a married partner.
A six man, six-woman jury was asked, essentially, to decide whether the suit filed by Pao is a stand against a boys club atmosphere at KPCB or a money grab by an employee who lacked the skills to join the rarified ranks of Silicon Valley venture capitalists.
The verdict was seen as a major victory for the firm, which has been criticised for not settling with Pao to avoid having embarrassing in-house scenarios publicly exposed.
Jurors began deliberations on Wednesday after rival attorneys finished closing arguments.
Pao’s lawyer sought to convince the panel that KPCB had a double standard when it came to gender, and then retaliated against her when she complained about it.
“They ran Kleiner Perkins like a boys club,” Pao’s attorney Alan Exelrod argued.
Pao contended that she and other women were passed over for advancement and endured harassment in a male-oriented culture.
Pao was hired in 2005 to be an office manager for Doerr and years later got a chance at an investment role.
During several days of testimony at trial, Pao maintained that women were shut out of some KPCB networking events and that bad behaviour by male colleagues included the gift of a Book of Longing poetry tome and a conversation that included talk of porn stars.
KPCB lawyer Lynne Hermle reminded jurors of a chart Pao made of co-workers she resented, including a married partner with whom she had an affair and high-profile partner Doerr.
Hermle contended that Pao perpetually clashed with co-workers and put her own agenda first. Pao tried to “torpedo” a KPCB investigation into her complaint while devoting much time and effort to cultivating email trails and gathering digital documents to give lawyers handling her lawsuit, Hermle argued.
