A discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against San Francisco HR tech firm Rippling has been forced into arbitration after a federal judge ruled the case falls under a binding arbitration agreement.
The lawsuit, initially filed by Fu Zhou on March 21, 2025, accuses Rippling of gender and disability discrimination, retaliation and violating several Washington labor laws, including the state’s “Silenced No More Act.”
The forced arbitration ruling follows Rippling’s move in April to transfer the case from King County Superior Court to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
In the lawsuit, Zhou claims she was unlawfully fired after taking medical leave for IVF treatment and raising pay fairness concerns. She says she had no prior performance issues before going on unpaid disability leave in March 2022 and provided medical documentation to her manager, Adam Donovan. Shortly after returning to work in June 2022, she was terminated in a retaliatory and discriminatory nature.
“Ms. Zhou’s unpaid disability leave concluded, and she returned to work on June 3, 2022,” the complaint states. “Upon returning, she was immediately terminated.”
The complaint notes Zhou’s firing came despite having been recently entrusted with a critical project, according to the filing.
“Around February 16, 2022 – just weeks prior to Ms. Zhou going on leave – Rippling gave Ms. Zhou the lead on an extremely important project,” the complaint reads. “When she was given this important assignment, Mr. Donovan’s boss, Jeremy Henrickson, sent Ms. Zhou a message stating that ‘there is a long history of things going wrong’ with this project and ‘we need to be flawless from here on out.’ It is implausible that Rippling would entrust a key project that required flawless execution to an employee who had serious performance issues.”
According to the complaint, when Donovan told HR he wanted to fire Zhou, the department questioned whether there was any record of poor performance to support the decision.
“HR responded by asking him whether he had documented performance issues with Ms. Zhou,” the complaint reads. “Mr. Donovan admitted that there was not a history of performance documentation, and he told HR that he would need to ‘retroactively’ document issues. He also told HR that he wanted to ‘move very quickly on this’ rather than follow his normal practice of allowing employees to address feedback.”
The lawsuit also accuses Donovan of protecting male employees with known performance problems while singling out Zhou.
“Despite the known performance deficiencies of these two male employees, Mr. Donovan sought to protect them,” the complaint reads. “He instead terminated Ms. Zhou who did not have similar performance deficiencies.”
It also highlights Donovan’s alleged bias against employees taking medical leave, citing his negative comments about another female employee’s health situation.
“In February 2022, Mr. Donovan alarmed Ms. Zhou by openly treating another female employee’s medical leave and disability accommodation as a negative factor in her employment,” the complaint reads. “On a group chat, Mr. Donovan inappropriately discussed that employee’s health condition and medical leave, and he stated, ‘I would much rather her be on leave, or leave the company, than being nominally working but very unproductive and unpredictable.’ His comments indicate that Mr. Donovan has a bias against employees taking leave, and that he views an employee with medical disabilities as likely to be ‘unproductive and unpredictable.’”
Donovan, an MIT graduate, is the Head of Infrastructure at Rippling. Before that, he co-founded and was CTO of Trefis, a company offering interactive financial data tools, and has advised Artisan Industries since 2008. He also served as Director of BattleCode, a programming competition where participants create AI to play a real-time strategy game, from 2006 to 2008.
The lawsuit also accuses Rippling of violating the Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave Act (WPFMLA) by not informing Zhou of her eligibility for paid leave while she was on disability.
“Had Ms. Zhou been informed that she was eligible for paid leave, she would have exercised that right,” the complaint reads. “Defendants’ failure to notify Ms. Zhou caused her to miss out on this valuable benefit.”
Zhou also refused to sign a separation agreement containing a “No Cooperation” clause, which she says violates the Silenced No More Act by restricting employees from speaking about workplace misconduct.
“This ‘No Cooperation’ provision constitutes a significant restriction on an employee’s ability to speak about illegal workplace behavior,” the complaint reads. “When an employee is asserting claims against her employer, it is crucial that the claimant’s colleagues and former colleagues have the freedom to speak with the claimant (or the claimant’s attorney) about what they witnessed, what corroborating testimony they can provide, whether the employer has engaged in a pattern of illegal behavior, etc. The ‘No Cooperation’ provision in the separation agreement bars employees from providing that type of assistance.”
Additionally, Zhou claims her pay inquiry in early 2022 was ignored and was a factor in her termination.
“Zhou asked Mr. Donovan about her pay and the opportunity to be compensated more,” the complaint reads. “Mr. Donovan was not interested in addressing Ms. Zhou’s compensation inquiry. Ms. Zhou was concerned that she was not receiving equal pay compared to similarly situated male employees at Rippling.”
According to the complaint, Zhou was scheduled to receive a stock grant of 52,500 RSUs vesting over four years, with the first 13,125 shares valued at around $450,000 at the time vesting in October 2022.
“Had Plaintiff not been terminated, she would have been entitled to a grant of 26 52,500 RSUs vesting over 4 years with the first batch vesting in October 2022,” the complaint reads. “Before Ms. Zhou left the company, Rippling valued the scheduled October 2022 grant of 13,125 RSUs at approximately $450,000. Upon information and belief, the value of the RSUs subsequently increased along with Rippling’s overall valuation.”
Zhou seeks damages for lost wages, stock grants, emotional distress and attorney’s fees.
She is represented by David C. Martin and Lisa Burke of MBE Law Group PLLC.
Rippling has faced recent criticism for its workplace culture, including an anonymous Glassdoor review from a former HR employee.
The review, posted in January 2024, warns prospective employees to steer clear, stating, “Avoid this company at all cost, you will regret working here.”
The reviewer acknowledged that the pay is high, but only “if you are willing to sell your soul for it.”
The reviewer alleges that raising concerns about discrimination could lead to termination. “If you notice discrimination and call it out, you might get fired (believe me, I am not making this up),” the review states. The reviewer also accused HR of encouraging fake positive reviews to improve the company’s image.
“I want to let everyone know that I worked with HR, and they try their hardest to make the company look good,” the reviewer wrote. “They do this by ‘encouraging’ people to post positive remarks on LinkedIn and to leave a good review on Glassdoor right after being hired. So please take all the positive reviews with a huge grain of salt.”
Rippling is also facing controversy over CEO Parker Conrad’s regulatory history.
Conrad, who previously led Zenefits, is under renewed scrutiny for failing to disclose past disciplinary actions in Rippling’s 2017 and 2019 filings with Illinois insurance regulators.
While applying for licenses, Rippling answered “No” to questions about prior sanctions or license surrenders, even though Conrad had previously surrendered his California insurance license and paid fines in Texas for compliance violations at Zenefits.
Regulatory investigations during his time at Zenefits revealed that unlicensed employees were selling insurance across multiple states, prompting threats of shutdowns and legal action. In response, Conrad resigned as CEO in 2016 and was later fined $35,000 in Texas and $66,000 in California, where he also agreed to stop transacting insurance without proper licensing.
Despite this history, Rippling provided conflicting information in state filings. In a 2017 Tennessee application, Conrad was listed as a “non-controlling shareholder,” while a simultaneous California filing named him a “controlling person” who owned 60 percent of the company.
These discrepancies, along with new allegations in a lawsuit by competitor Deel Inc. accusing Conrad and Rippling of misappropriating client payroll and benefits funds, have raised further concerns about his compliance record and the company’s transparency.
Both the Illinois Department of Insurance and the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance declined to comment on the discrepancies.
