Beatrice Kim is suing her former employer BetterWorks and its CEO Kris Duggan for allegedly assaulting her in a sexual manner during a company retreat. The..
Beatrice Kim is suing her former employer BetterWorks and its CEO Kris Duggan for allegedly assaulting her in a sexual manner during a company retreat. The lawsuit also implicates thehe performance management software startup, regional VP Matt Hart, and VP of People Operations Tamara Cooksey for allowing sexual harassment in the workplace and not taking action against Duggan after the alleged assault was reported to the company.
Kim is suing over sexual harassment and discrimination, assault, and battery, demanding a jury trial. Kim’s lawyer Conor D. Mack of Arena Hoffman LLP told TechCrunch,
TechCrunch reached out to BetterWorks for comment. CEO Kris Duggan called TechCrunch, but only gave the on-the-record statement that “We are not commenting on any pending litigation.”
Duggan co-founded BetterWorks in 2013 to create enterprise software so a company’s employees could set and track performance goals. BetterWorks has raised $35 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins and Emergence Capital Partners. This week Duggan published
The suit alleges that the “Plaintiff experienced a hostile working environment based on gender while working at BetterWorks, enduring vulgar and graphic jokes and comments about women, rape, and female body parts”, with jokes made by Duggan and Hart. It notes that “individuals in the highest levels of the organization encouraged, condoned, and even engaged in conduct that created the hostile working environment. Women who attempted to complain to HR and upper management were deterred from complaining and told to be a ‘cool girl’ or that ‘it’s a female issue’ and ‘cattiness’ or were simply ignored.”
Duggan allegedly told a female employee who complained about the lack of gender diversity on the sales staff that she should “tell recruiting we need to hire more boobies.”
In October 2016 during a BetterWorks 2-day offsite retreat at a camp in Pescadero, California, Duggan allegedly assaulted Kim. He’s said to have drank alcohol aggressively, danced inappropriately with female co-workers, and draped his arm over a female employee inappropriately. At one point, the CEO is said to have entered a cabin and while dancing, chest-bumped a female employee repeatedly until she fell down, causing Kim to leave for another cabin.
At this point, the suit explains that:
Kim reported the incident to Cooksey the next morning. Two days later, Duggan sent a company-wide email apologizing for his misconduct and promising the company would hire an “outside employment expert” to investigate the situation and would “review and implement recommendations that the investigator makes”. But Kim alleges that BetterWorks failed to take any signficant action against Duggan.
After waiting weeks, Kim says BetterWorks declined to share the results of the investigation with her, and eventually stated that Duggan did not violate the startup’s harassment policies. Kim also alleges that Cooksey dismissed other harassment complaints as “cattiness”, told victims not to file formal complaints, and instead be a “cool girl”. Kim was compelled to resign from the company.
Kim’s lawsuit emerges as more whistleblowers stand up to report sexual harassment, discrimination, and assault in the tech industry. Susan Fowler’s report about misconduct at Uber leading to its CEO’s resignation has been met with widespread support. That appears to have emboldened victims to come forward despite the risk of defamation or blackballing by potential employers, leading to the departure of partners at Binary Capital, 500 Startups, and Ignition Capital.
Below is embedded the legal filing from Kim vs BetterWorks, where Kim is suing over sexual harassment in violation of FEHA, discrimonatory constructive discharge based on gender in violation of FEHA, failure to prevent harassment and discrimination in violation of FEHA, aiding and abetting harassment and discrimination, assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent hiring, retention, and supervision.
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[Featured Image Credit: Amanda Delzell]
