This is the first of a two-part series from Green Market Report regarding allegations of a toxic work culture and other systemic problems at Curaleaf Holdings.
The largest and most valuable cannabis company in the world allegedly has a “toxic” and “hostile” work culture that fosters sexism, racism and nepotism.
That’s according to a trio of federal lawsuits filed against Midtown-based Curaleaf Holdings since December 2023 by former female employees. The sentiment also was echoed by another three former female employees who spent years in leadership roles at the multistate operator, and who spoke to Green Market Report about their experiences.
Curaleaf has a market cap of $1.5 billion and an industry footprint that spans 17 U.S. states, as well as cannabis holdings in Europe. It’s unquestionably a cannabis industry leader, and has been for several years, simply by virtue of its size and market power.
But leadership — including CEO Boris Jordan and several of his family members who hold senior-level positions at the company — has set a corporate tone for the business that encourages not only misogyny, but other serious cultural issues that have been driving away talent and potentially costing the company millions, according to the lawsuits and the three former employees.
Curaleaf said in a statement that it “vehemently denies these claims and will allow the legal process to run its course” with the trio of lawsuits, but the company added that it’s “concerned about the negative statements made by former employees about the company.”
“Chairman and CEO Boris Jordan has a documented history of running companies led by women in prominent leadership roles,” the company said. “When Boris took on the role of Chairman and CEO at Curaleaf, a part of his mandate consisted of a significant leadership restructuring, including continuing to hire and promote women in executive leadership positions.”
The lawsuits could cost Curaleaf a pretty penny in legal settlements, court costs and potential jury verdicts against it, depending on how the legal process plays out, an attorney for one of the plaintiffs said.
“My firm has returned seven-figure verdicts in employment discrimination cases, and Massachusetts juries are not shy about punitive damages,” said Michaela May, an attorney for ex-Curaleaf senior vice president Khadijah Tribble, who filed suit in October last year against the company for discrimination, retaliation and nonpayment of wages.
Tribble’s case is one of the more high-profile lawsuits that Curaleaf has had to weather — the company also denied all allegations in that suit to Green Market Report when it was first filed — but it’s hardly the only one.
The legal actions
Like any major corporation, Curaleaf has faced its share of employment-related lawsuits over the years, including one from its former chief strategy officer, Mitchell Hara, who sued the company in 2023 for breach of contract after he was let go. That case is slated to go to trial this October in federal court in Florida.
But Curaleaf also appears to have a trend on its hands of dissatisfied women former employees who are not willing to go away quietly. At least, not without a significant payout.
The ongoing Tribble case has at least two counterparts that are also still active in court. Kelly Sarratt, former Curaleaf marketing director for the state of Arizona, sued the company in December 2023 for sex discrimination, age discrimination, gender discrimination and retaliation. The same month, Vermont-based Kathryn Rincon, Curaleaf’s senior director of brand marketing, filed suit against the company as well, alleging breach of contract, failure to pay wages, sex discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination.
Kelly Sarratt
Sarratt, who first worked for Curaleaf from 2018 to 2020, outlined in her lawsuit that her experience with the company was so negative that she resigned to go work for a competitor, only to wind up a Curaleaf employee once more a year later after Curaleaf purchased her new employer, a cannabis company called Bloom.
Sarratt claimed in her suit that she initially left due to “ongoing discrimination and retaliation.” She also said she had similar experiences during her second stint as a Curaleaf employee, as she watched younger men get paid more and get promoted while she was demoted and denied opportunities to apply for higher-up positions.
Finally, in 2022, Sarratt filed complaints with both the Arizona attorney general’s office and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging discrimination and retaliation by Curaleaf. The EEOC issued a notice of a right to sue, and Sarratt took it to court.
The lawsuit claims that Curaleaf engaged in “disparate treatment on the basis of sex by regularly assigning and demanding a significantly higher number of assignments and workload to female directors at Curaleaf than it did to male directors.”
That overly-burdensome workload for female employees, Sarratt alleged, led to her only getting seven days off in her first two years of employment with Curaleaf, whereas “male directors employed by Defendant regularly took days off of work, took weekends off.”
It was only once Sarratt complained about the double standard that Curaleaf management began retaliating against her, she claimed.
Sarratt also said she reported a member of the “executive team,” manager Steve Cottrell, to human resources in 2022 for “attempted extortion against one of Defendant’s vendors, in his efforts to strongarm the purchase of Curaleaf’s wholesale flower, using unlawful and unethical tactics.”
To the best of Sarratt’s knowledge, her complaint was never investigated by HR, despite being forwarded to the vice president of the department.
Rather, 10 days after Sarratt filed the complaint, she was demoted, stripped of her title of chief marketing officer and made a marketing manager, which Sarratt said came with a significant pay cut.
Although Sarratt’s lawsuit is still active, attorneys for both sides notified the court last month of a likely settlement that will result in the suit being dismissed. An attorney for Sarratt did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Kathryn Rincon
Rincon, a remote worker from Vermont, also filed suit in December 2023, in state court. Her case was moved to federal court a month later.
In her lawsuit, she also alleged systemically poor treatment of female employees compared to male workers, which she said, produced a “toxic culture” at Curaleaf.
Rincon was hired in early 2022 as a remote employee working from her home with the title senior director of brand marketing. Her problems began about a year after she started her job, largely because she tried to take advantage of Curaleaf’s unlimited time off policy to relocate to California so she could care for her ailing mother, according to the suit.
The time off policy, which Rincon said was guaranteed in her job offer letter, was a key reason she took the position.
In July 2023, after Rincon had taken about a month off from work, Curaleaf suddenly stopped paying her salary after her mother’s sudden passing, despite the fact that Rincon had obtained formal permission for her absence through the Family Medical Leave Act and confirmed her absence with superiors at the company. A few days were even formally designated as “bereavement leave.”
Rincon arranged for her time away from work to be extended, due to post-traumatic stress disorder that she was suffering due to her mother’s death, with her absence expected to last until October that year. But she was unable to get the company to begin paying her salary again after it was cut off, despite repeated contacts with human resources.
Rather, over subsequent months, Rincon “received varying explanations” as to why her pay had not been reinstated, until finally she was formally laid off in November, according to the suit. Rincon was told that her position was being eliminated, but she later learned that the company simply reassigned her jobs to two other employees.
“Curaleaf treated Ms. Rincon differently on the basis of sex when it ceased paying her salary, and when it terminated her employment after she complained about the toxic culture at Curaleaf,” Rincon’s lawsuit asserts.
“Similarly situated women employees have been laid off or fired shorty after complaining about a toxic work culture at Curaleaf or the behavior of male supervisors,” the suit claims.
Rincon’s attorney also did not respond to a request for comment, but the case is scheduled to go to trial in August this year, according to court records.
Khadijah Tribble
The most recent lawsuit, filed by Tribble in Massachusetts federal court, echoes all the same themes of preferential treatment for male employees over women, systemic sexism, and retaliation, but also builds on that.
Tribble, a Black woman, claims that she endured racist commentary from Jordan while on the job, a death threat from a Curaleaf vendor, sexual harassment from a white male Curaleaf executive, serious pay inequity between her and male colleagues, and that all of these issues and more were swept under the rug by corporate leadership.
According to Tribble’s lawsuit, Jordan “referred to people in the criminal justice system with cannabis violations, many of whom are persons of color, as ‘thugs.’”
“Jordan also stated that New York regulators had subjected Curaleaf to actions that amounted to ‘reverse discrimination,’” and also “referred to immigrants as ‘illegals,’” the suit claims.
Separately, at a company meeting — and within earshot of Tribble’s team members — a Curaleaf vice president named Patrick Larkin asked her, “Have you ever had any Irish in you?”
When Tribble filed a complaint about the incident, she said then-CEO Matt Darin downplayed the incident, and as far as she knew, no investigation was ever conducted, nor was Larkin disciplined.
The Tribble case is still in early stages, and Curaleaf has not filed a formal response with the court, but in November, the company vowed to fight Tribble and said it would “fully defend” itself against her “baseless allegations.”
Tribble’s attorney, May, said the fact that there are at least three such similar lawsuits from three different women, all with variations on the same toxic workplace allegations, is “certainly legally relevant.”
“In discrimination and particularly harassment cases, we often find that there’s a dirty underbelly, that there are similar allegations brought by employees often of similar protected classes,” May said.
May also said that if Curaleaf doesn’t take such cases seriously and address the root causes, then there are only likely to be more such lawsuits filed over time.
“Employers, if they don’t fix the conditions that create this, are just going to repeat their past sins,” May said. “If the culture of fear that may have created these lawsuits in the first place is still there, then I think you’re going to see more claims. And sometime, some claims can embolden others to come forward.”
In a statement this month shared by her attorney, Tribble said she had heard from many other Curaleaf employees since her lawsuit was filed, underscoring that she’s not the only former staffer who feels that the company culture is seriously flawed.
“I understand that many of you saw my lawsuit and felt it echoed your own experiences,” Tribble said. “It is disheartening to hear the stories of discrimination and misconduct shared by many women and people of color. I want you to know that I hear you, I feel every message, and I will not leave you behind. We will have our say.”
