Bias suit against Yahoo dismissed
A lawsuit by a former Yahoo manager accusing the Sunnyvale company of gender discrimination has been dismissed.
Scott Ard, a former senior editorial director at Yahoo, raised concerns about how Yahoo evaluated its employees, believing the system could be manipulated to favor women over men. Ard said he was later told he lost his job due to poor performance but did not receive information on how he fared in an employee rating system, according to his 2016 lawsuit.
The case, filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, was dismissed this month “with prejudice,” meaning that Ard will be unable to file the same claim in court against Yahoo in the future. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins, who recently also ruled on another former Yahoo employee’s gender discrimination claim, presided over the case.
Ard’s attorney did not immediately return a call for comment. Yahoo’s attorney declined to comment.
Lisa Klerman, a clinical professor at USC Gould School of Law who is not involved in the case, said a frequent reason that a dismissal with prejudice might appear on a docket sheet without explanation is because there is a settlement.
Former Yahoo editorial director Gregory Anderson also filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against Yahoo. Cousins ruled against Anderson, writing that “Anderson has not provided any evidence that his termination had anything to do with his gender other than his feelings that he was being discriminated against.”
Anderson said in an interview he felt he had compelling evidence that showed Yahoo was using its employee rating system in a discriminatory way. In addition, Anderson said his lawsuit was about calling attention to Yahoo’s employee rating system, which he said did not follow state law requiring large employers to report mass layoffs because it classified certain terminations as firings rather than layoffs.
“It’s disappointing I didn’t get my day in court,” he said.
Spokespeople for Oath, which is a division of Verizon that includes the Yahoo brand, did not respond to requests for comment on Anderson’s or Ard’s cases.
Anderson said even though the ruling went against him, he felt his lawsuit pushed Yahoo to report mass layoffs to the state in 2016.
He said he knew his odds of winning were “not great,” but added, “I feel like I won in the court of reality.”
Anderson said he is considering an appeal and plans to write a book called “Stacked” about Yahoo’s employee rating system.