Accusations that Google paid their female employees less than men and given them fewer promotions have been dismissed by a California state judge on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
Superior Court judge Mary Miss said that the lawsuit, which represented all female Google employees in California, was far too vague, and asked the plaintiffs to file a new complaint for the specific groups of women who were affected by pay discrimination. Miss added that two of the three named plaintiffs had not proven they the work they did for Google did was equivalent to the work done by men who had been allegedly been paid more.
After Wiss’ revealed her concerns, a plaintiff lawyer, James Finberg, said he would file a new complaint by early next month.
The lawsuit was filed in September by three women, Kelly Ellis, Holly Pease, and Kelli Wisuri. They argued that they were placed on lower career tracks than their male counterparts and earned less money and bonuses as a result. Ellis, for example, said that she was placed on the front-end team, despite having experience in backend development and the backend team had a higher reputation, earned more money, and was a male-dominated atmosphere. All three women have left Google over the past few years.
The case Ellis v. Google is the first lawsuit that accuses Google business executives of gender bias, even though it is an issue commonly raised against other Silicon Valley tech companies, including the ride-sharing company Uber.