Ellen Pao to appeal Silicon Valley gender case loss
Ellen Pao on Monday renewed her legal battle with a prominent venture capital firm, filing notice that she will appeal her loss earlier this year at a jury trial.
Attorneys for Pao filed a notice of appeal in the San Francisco state court building where jurors in March sided with Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (KPCB) in her gender discrimination suit against her former employer.
Paperwork filed with the court stated Pao's intent to appeal but did not specify the legal basis.
A California jury rejected her charges of gender discrimination against KPCB in a closely-watched case seen by some here as a proxy trial of Silicon Valley sex bias.
The state court jury found KPCB did not discriminate against Pao, who claimed she was fired after complaining about bias at the firm that notably backed Amazon, Facebook and Google.
Jurors deliberated for slightly more than two days before handing a victory to KPCB.
Pao's lawyers painted the 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.
Pao asked the jury to order KPCB to pay $16 million in money she would have made if she wasn't fired from the firm in 2012. Pao also sought hefty cash damages.
Pao is now the well-paid interim chief of social news site Reddit.
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 criticized for not settling with Pao to avoid having embarrassing in-house scenarios publicly exposed.
"A 12-member jury found decisively in favor of KPCB on all four claims," Christina Lee of KPCB said in a statement emailed to AFP.
"We remain committed to gender diversity in the workplace and believe that women in technology would be best served by focusing on this issue outside of continued litigation."
Court rules left Pao responsible for legal expenses of KPCB, estimated to be about a million dollars, but the venture capital firm had offered to let her off the hook for the money if she agreed not to appeal.
© 2015 AFP
