A gender bias case that has riveted Silicon Valley for weeks took a strange turn Friday when a jury first said it had ruled on behalf of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers — and then the judge refused to enter the verdict and ordered the jury to resume deliberating.
The San Francisco jury first said, by a vote of 10 to 2, that Kleiner Perkins had not discriminated against former partner Ellen Pao.
Pao sued Kleiner Perkins in 2012, claiming she was passed over for promotions and eventually terminated because she was a woman, and because she had complained about discrimination.
But moments after announcing their verdict, when Judge Harold Kahn asked each juror their individual votes, the judge discovered they did not have an adequate majority on one of Pao’s four legal claims.
The outstanding legal claim involved whether the firm terminated Pao for complaining and filing the lawsuit.
The unusual development means there is not yet a final verdict in the case. Judge Kahn cleared the courtroom after sending the jury of six women and six men back to its deliberation room. Outside the courtroom, reporters with laptops lined the hallway and crowded around power outlets.
The 24-day trial included testimony from various Kleiner Perkins partners. Pao testified for four days. Both sides went through piles of performance reviews and emails from her seven years at the venture capital firm. A number of dueling experts were called to testify about damages and employment discrimination investigations.
Pao had accused her former employer of gender discrimination and retaliation. During the trial, her lawyers brought up a number of alleged incidences when male partners excluded her or acted inappropriately.
Kleiner Perkins denied that any discrimination or retaliation played a part in their decisions. Instead, they said that Pao was a difficult and underperforming employee who didn’t want to improve. They alleged that she knew she was going to be fired and purposefully concocted a trail of evidence so that she could sue for millions.
Silicon Valley was paying close attention to the trial, and not just because Kleiner Perkins is one of the most well-known venture capital firms in the industry. The lack of diversity in technology is a hot topic, and the jury’s decision could have implications for women in the field.
Since the trial started, two other women have filed separate gender discrimination suits against Twitter and Facebook.