Q&A: Termination for Getting Pregnant is Illegal
Published by James Peters January 3rd, 2007 in Discrimination, Q&A, Wrongful TerminationQ: Last week I found out I was pregnant and my husband and I were overjoyed. The next day, I went into work and told my boss. He said that he does not allow pregnant women to work there because they disrupt scheduling when they take time off to have the baby. He terminated me and said I could re-apply for my position after I have the baby. Help!
--Pregnant and Unemployed (CA)
A: As you probably know, it is illegal under both federal and California law for an employer to terminate an employee because she becomes pregnant.
Pregnancy Discrimination Claims
Pregnancy discrimination is actually a form of gender discrimination. The rationale is that only women can become pregnant, so discriminating against a woman for being pregnant is essentially discriminating against her for being a woman.
Medical Leave Claims
Your situation also constitutes discrimination under the California Family Rights Act and other medical leave laws. If you are terminated because your employer anticipates you will be taking time off that is protected by the law, it is basically the same as if you were terminated for taking that leave after the fact.
Pregnancy Discrimination Claims More Successful
A recent survey showed that pregnancy discrimination cases seem to have a higher success rate than other employment discrimination claims. I believe this is the result of a few related factors.
First, an employee can point to a specific date when their employer found out they were pregnant and if the employer terminates or otherwise discriminates against the employee a short time later, it is clear that pregnancy was the reason.
Second, it just "makes sense" that an employer would tend to discriminate against pregnant employees. In California an employee can take up to four months of protected leave for the birth of a child. The employer essentially gets a few months notice that an employee will definitely be taking such a leave in the near future. It is only human for a manager to decide that things might go more smoothly if the pregnant employee was replaced.
This, of course, does not make it right.
Damages in These Cases are Sobering for Employers
When the inconvenience of employing a pregnant woman is compared to the potential damages a company might be forced to pay her later if she successfully sues them, it should be all to clear to them that not terminating her is much cheaper than terminating her.
This is especially true for employers in California, where they can be forced to pay an employee her lost wages, attorney's fees, and virtually unlimited emotional distress and punitive damages.
Tags
California Employment Law | Discrimination | Family Medical Leave | Family Status Discrimination | Gender Discrimination | Medical Leave Discrimination | Pregnancy Discrimination | Wrongful Termination
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5 Comments DISCLAIMER
My wife and I are discussing having a baby. However, her boss requires her to travel quite extensively, and she is concerned that all of this travel will be bad for her and/or the baby while she is pregnant. There are other people at her office who could travel instead of her, but her boss states that she because she is more qualified than anyone else, she should be the one to do the traveling.
We are concerned that if she even tells her boss that she wants to ease up on the traveling so she can try to get pregnant, he will fire her. If that happened, would that termination be actionable?
While it depends on many facts and circumstances surrounding your wife's employment, 9 times out of 10 this would be an actionable (and good) case if your wife is pregnant and is terminated as a direct or indirect result of that fact.
However, there may be an issue of retaliation for requests for less travel while "trying" to get pregnant (as opposed to while actually being pregnant). I don't believe there is any case law specifically dealing with discriminating against an employee who is trying to get pregnant, except if time off is needed for artificial insemination, etc.
Please contact me directly if you have any further questions about your situation.
Good Information.
IS THERE A LAW TO CLAIM AGAINST TERMINATION OF WORKING PREGNANT WOMAN QUOTING OTHER REASONS(APART FROM PREGNANCY REASONS)
Have been doing a significant amount of research on the following issue for a client, but cannot find any authority. Employee is let go when she is pregnant because the position was eliminated. She files charge of discrimination. In the interim, while the charge is pending, a few months later, company decides to re-establish position it had eliminated. Does company have to offer position to former employee who filed charge of discrimination? Thanks