Ethereum Foundation and Vitalik Taken to Court: A Cancer Patient's Dismissal and a "Seppuku Pledge"

The Ethereum Foundation and Vitalik Buterin have been named as defendants in a civil lawsuit filed in Colorado federal court by Kayleen Fulton, the former head of the foundation's protocol support team, who alleges she was fired after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer in retaliation for opposing the "EF Mandate" and its controversial "Source Seppuku License" clause. The suit claims Fulton received her highest-ever performance rating and a 21.9% raise in September 2025, but was terminated on April 6, 2026, within 30 minutes of colleague Trent Van Epps, after 53 protocol-cluster members signed a letter refusing to sign the Mandate under duress; 79 employees had voted to remove the seppuku clause, and the disputed document was ultimately recorded permanently on the Ethereum blockchain. The complaint cites a recorded May 1, 2026 call in which Buterin questioned what behavior the EF should reward, allegedly evidencing a retaliatory motive, and names him personally for aiding and abetting discrimination and retaliation across 11 claims including ADA and FMLA violations, with Fulton seeking back pay, punitive damages, $5,000 per violation and attorney fees. The case has emerged amid the EF's most turbulent restructuring to date, with roughly 20% of staff cut (about 54 people), the departures of protocol leads Tim Beiko, Barnabé Monnot and Alex Stokes, co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak's exit, and the July 2026 dissolution of Fulton's protocol support team. The lawsuit tests whether traditional labor protections apply to a Swiss foundation that uses an employer-of-record arrangement and has long positioned itself as merely "one node" in the ecosystem rather than a central employer. What to watch next is whether the Colorado court accepts the recording as evidence of causation and how the ruling shapes governance and employment norms across crypto foundations.