Ethereum Foundation lawsuit links the chain of command to a chain of complaints

A former Ethereum Foundation employee has sued the organization, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and four others, alleging disability discrimination, retaliation and interference with her medical leave rights. Kayleen Fulton filed the complaint on Nov. 4 in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, seeking lost pay and damages.

Fulton, who led the foundation’s protocol support team and is known in the Ethereum community as “Nixo,” alleges that Bastian Aue, a co-executive director at the time, fired her on April 6, 13 days after she disclosed a cancer diagnosis. The complaint alleges that Buterin helped adopt and enforce the directive as a board member.

Fulton said she and colleague Trent Van Epps organized a letter in response to the foundation’s new mandate that drew 53 signers. The letter supported the mandate’s goals while objecting to a requirement that employees affirm it to keep their jobs. According to the complaint, Aue fired Fulton and Van Epps 30 minutes apart on April 6.

The complaint also says some employees objected to a reference to ritual suicide in the mandate. Aue told staff that the language was figurative, according to the complaint. In a May 14 letter quoted in the complaint, a lawyer for the foundation’s Singapore affiliate, Ethereum Asia Pacific Limited, denied that Fulton had been subjected to unlawful conduct or retaliation and said her separation agreement was binding.

The Ethereum Foundation published its mandate in March, outlining its role in Ethereum’s ongoing and future development. The mandate highlighted censorship resistance, open-source code, privacy and security, and said the foundation would focus on protocol upgrades, research and developer tools. Cointelegraph reached out to the foundation, Fulton and Van Epps for comment but had not received a response by publication.