I’m pretty sure I found Exhibit “A” in a new EEOC pregnancy bias lawsuit. It will blow your mind 🤯

Yesterday, the EEOC announced that it had sued an employer for allegedly denying a new hire request to leave training early for an urgent medical evaluation related to her pregnancy and rescinded her job offer.

These are just allegations. However, according to the EEOC complaint, the federal discrimination watchdog appears to have the receipts to back them up.

Shortly, I’ll get to what is undoubtedly one of the worst text messages ever sent. But let’s take this chronologically.

According to the EEOC’s complaint, a pregnant woman applied for a sales consultant position with a company. The company offered her a position contingent on completing a new hire training program within two weeks of her official start date. The employee accepted, and onboarding began.

So far, so good.

The EEOC further alleges that four days before the training was to begin, the employee received a call in her car from an ultrasound technician who informed her that she urgently needed an ultrasound and evaluation by a high-risk pregnancy doctor. The first available appointment was on the day training was to begin. (The next appointment would have been three months later.) So, the following day, the employee texted the  District Sales Manager that she “got a phone call from her ultrasound tech stating that there might be something wrong with [her] daughter’s heart” and explained that she would need a follow-up ultrasound at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, December 13th.

Ok, sit down and finish drinking your coffee so as not to spit it out on your electronic device when you read what the manager allegedly texted back later the same day:

“I’m so sorry to hear about that, and I hope everything is okay. Please let me know if you need anything. I’ll send positive vibes your way and hope it was a mistake. I don’t mean to add additional stress, but I spoke to [the] HR Department, and unfortunately, we are going to have to close out this position. Until you feel you can 100% attend, you are going to have to reapply once you can.”

Wowee! Wow! Wow!

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act contemplates leave for health care appointments as a reasonable accommodation. However, the facts of this case arose before the PWFA’s enactment.

Enter the ADA and Title VII.

HR seemingly invoked a “fully-healed policy” on someone it regarded as disabled. Then, according to the EEOC, the company doubled down by treating her differently than non-pregnant new hires, who were allowed to adjust or reschedule their training start dates or attendance for issues unrelated to pregnancy.

The company may need more than positive vibes to avoid liability in this lawsuit.