Former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao is dropping her appeal and paying the legal costs in her gender discrimination case, Pao wrote in an essay on Re/Code.
"Over the past three and a half years, I have pursued a legal case against Kleiner Perkins for gender discrimination and retaliation. Seeking justice in the courts has been painful for me personally and professionally, and for my family. I am now moving on, paying Kleiner Perkins’ legal costs and dropping my appeal. My experience shows how difficult it is to address discrimination through the court system," she wrote.
Pao lost all counts of her case against the venture capital firm on March 27, 2015, when a jury found that her gender was not the motivating reason for her not being promoted to a general or senior partner, or for her termination at the firm. In June, Pao was ordered to pay $275,966.63 in court costs to her former employer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
In Pao's note, the former Reddit interim CEO said she discovered that the courts are not equipped to deal with gender discrimination trials. For one, discrimination must be intentional and has to be filed within one year under California law, Pao wrote, compared to property damage claims which can be filed up to three years later.
Pao also singled out Kleiner Perkins' resources, both financial and legal. She was originally ordered to pay close to $1 million in Kleiner's legal costs associated with the trial, but that number was reduced in June.
"The disparity in legal, PR and financial resources is also tremendous — and the primary reason for my decision to now focus my efforts outside court," Pao said.
Kleiner's legal arsenal and deep pockets impacted many parts of the trial, Pao also wrote. She cited examples of Kleiner spending five times as more on expert witnesses, hiring multiple PR people to argue their case to the press and pursuing "expensive procedural actions" that delayed the case by more than a year. Kleiner Perkins did not have a comment available, and we'll update when we hear back.
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