A senior tech engineer who was sacked after sleeping in a sauna during a work trip has won the right to seek £76 million in compensation. Shannon Burns, who earned £220,000 a year, was dismissed from her role as Vice President of Engineering at Gitpod over three years ago and has since won a disability discrimination case against the firm, which is now owned by ChatGPT developers OpenAI.
Details of the case
Ms Burns, who has ADHD, attended an off-site team-building event in Lofer, Austria, in April 2023. She said CEO Johannes Landgraf and other staff drank alcohol during the trip. One evening, Ms Burns, who had also been drinking, could not access her room as she had forgotten her key. Her ADHD caused her to have a 'great deal of forgetfulness' and she would 'persistently' lose items. That night she ended up allegedly having to sleep in a sauna.
After the trip, CEO Mr Landgraf said he was concerned about her 'lack of professional accountability', she added. In June 2023 she was sacked, with Ms Burns saying: 'My male colleagues were drinking alcohol/drunk at the offsite but I was the only one who was dismissed.'
Compensation claim
Ms Burns, who has developed PTSD after her sacking and has had to leave a career in tech for good, is seeking £76 million based on 'forensic' calculations of what she could have earned in the lucrative industry. Her 'schedule of loss' examines what she could have gone on to earn, and her total future losses are estimated at over £59 million.
Gitpod attempted to restrict the amount she could seek to £1 million using a legal application described as 'oppressive' by her lawyers. But Birmingham Employment Tribunal has dismissed their application, meaning she can formally seek £76,071,992 compensation.
Gitpod ordered to disclose sale details
Gitpod has also been ordered to disclose to Ms Burns what the recent sale of the company to OpenAI was worth. Gitpod did not tell her how much it was sold for even though she has shares in the firm, which are thought to be worth £2.6 million alone and could rise to £21 million after four years.
Employment Judge Rachel Wedderspoon said: 'She has an exceptionally high pay history…. Her case is that but for the treatment she suffered at the hands of [Gitpod] she would have continued to have a highly lucrative career.' She added: 'My view is that Gitpod are attempting to use aggressive litigation tactics to drag out the process and wear her down.'
Ms Burns, who is American, was seen as a 'trailblazer' in the tech industry who worked for Silicon Valley firms including Slack and Lyft. She was headhunted by Gitpod in late 2022 and appointed to the key leadership role on a £220,000 salary with a £78,000 bonus per year. Currently, the biggest known award in UK Employment Tribunal history is £4.58 million. A full compensation hearing will be held at a later date, pending Gitpod's appeal of the previous tribunal ruling.
