In Former Engineer's Harassment Suit, Uber's Decision to Scrap Arbitration Gets Its First Test
The lawsuit comes just a week after the company announced that it would forgo arbitration and nondisclosure agreements in harassment cases.
May 21, 2018 at 06:19 PM
3 minute read
In the first test of Uber's newly announced policy to let sexual harassment and assault cases play out in public, a former Latina engineer sued the company claiming she faced discrimination based on her gender, ethnicity and disability.
Lawyers at Outten & Golden on Monday filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court on behalf of former Uber software engineer Ingrid Avendaño, who worked for the company from February 2014 to June 2017.
“Over her entire tenure at Uber, Avendaño saw and experienced a male-dominated work culture, permeated with degrading, marginalizing, discriminatory, and sexually harassing conduct towards women,” wrote Outten & Golden's Jennifer Schwartz and Menaka Fernando in Monday's 33-page complaint.
Avendaño claims she was hired at $100,000, a comparatively low salary compared with her male and white colleagues, and that she was promoted slower than similar-performing colleagues. She also claims that shortly after she started, she complained about inappropriate and discriminatory behavior by a male colleague at a recruiting event, but the complaint was ignored. The same employee later spread rumors that she had slept her way into the company, she claims.
Avendaño also claims that discriminatory behavior contributed to her physical and emotional problems, including panic attacks that she says proceeded to the point that she was vomiting at work.
“[E]ach time Avendaño raised concerns regarding unlawful conduct, she was met with Uber's entrenched disregard for the rights of its women employees and a refusal to take effective steps to prevent harassment,” her lawyers wrote. “Worse, she suffered blatant retaliation, including denial of promotions and raises, unwarranted negative performance reviews, and placement on an oppressively demanding on-call schedule that had detrimental effects on her health.”
Avendaño was among the initially named plaintiffs in a pay discrimination lawsuit against Uber, which the company ultimately settled for $10 million with a class of 420 minority and women engineers in March. According a press release announcing the lawsuit, Avendaño did not participate in the previously announced settlement.
In response to a request for comment on the lawsuit, an Uber spokeswoman said the company was “moving in a new direction.”
“Last week, we proactively announced changes to our arbitration policies,” she said. “And in the past year we have implemented a new salary and equity structure based on the market, overhauled our performance review process, published Diversity & Inclusion reports, and created and delivered diversity and leadership trainings to thousands of employees globally.”
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllAttorney of the Year Finalist: Michael Rubin, Latham & Watkins
John Hueston Appointed Monitor by CA Court Judge in Ruling on Veterans' Housing Case
Ex-Federal Prosecutor and White-Collar Defense Lawyer Joins Foundation Law Group
Litigator Sarah Shekhter Joins San Diego Jewish Bar Association Board of Directors
Trending Stories
- 1A&O Shearman, Hogan Lovells and the Stories That Shaped Africa This Year
- 2Borden Ladner Gervais Cyber Expert Warns of AI-Boosted Ransomware Attacks
- 3Phila. Judge Upholds $68.5M Verdict Over Construction Worker's Death
- 4Biden Vetoes Bill to Create More Federal Judgeships
- 5Memories of a Straight Shooter
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250