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 the performance management software startup&rsquo ;s 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,
“As described in the verified complaint, we intend to prove that BetterWorks CEO Kris Duggan assaulted Plaintiff Bea Kim in a sexually suggestive manner, ignoring her protests and attempts to free herself from Duggan until a co-worker had to physically intervene. We also intend to prove that BetterWorks fosters a hostile and discriminatory work environment for women by tacitly endorsing and actively covering up abusive misconduct by members of senior management.”
TechCrunch reached out to BetterWorks for comment. CEO Kris Duggan called TechCrunch Server Hosting, but only gave the on-the-record statement that “We are not commenting on any pending litigation.”
BetterWorks co-founder and CEO Kris Duggan
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 a guest post on The Next Web titled “6 lessons every business leader should learn from Uber’s uphill culture battle.” In it, he chides Uber because “In Uber’s sexual harassment case . . . it seems the employee didn’t have an appropriate channel for raising her complaint and concerns.” Kim’s lawsuit alleges the same problem was prevalent at BetterWorks.
Lawsuit alleges assault, harassment and ignored complaints
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 Server Hosting, 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.”