Dive Brief:
- A Jacksonville, Florida, location of poker room BestBet violated the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act by not offering reasonable accommodations to multiple pregnant employees, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged in EEOC V. BestBet Jacksonville, Inc., filed Tuesday.
- The charging party suffered from a form of low blood pressure that causes dizziness and fainting, according to the complaint, as well as a subchorionic hematoma, which can cause pregnancy loss.
- After the worker notified HR about her condition and provided a doctor’s note advising her to take two and a half weeks off of work, the company would not accommodate her leave and refused to permit her return to work. This was a pattern at BestBet, the complaint alleged, with a “class of similarly aggrieved female employees” also denied accommodations related to pregnancy or childbirth.
Dive Insight:
Kristen Foslid, a regional attorney for the EEOC Miami District Office, reminded business leaders of their obligation to accommodate people's pregnancy- and childbirth-related limitations at work under the PWFA, absent undue hardship.
“Employers must engage in an interactive dialogue with employees to find suitable accommodations, rather than simply denying the requests outright,” Foslid said in a statement Wednesday.
The EEOC has settled a couple of PWFA allegations this year. At the top of the year, a California-based staffing agency paid $185,000 to settle EEOC claims that it had been terminating pregnant workers since 2019. Likewise, an Oklahoma urological clinic settled an EEOC lawsuit in February after allegations the clinic failed to accommodate a medical assistant with a high-risk pregnancy.
In the clinic’s instance, the EEOC alleged that the employer had violated both the PWFA and the Americans with Disabilities Act by refusing the pregnant worker sitting breaks, placing her on unpaid leave and denying her the chance to have breast milk pumping breaks upon her return.
BestBet did not respond to multiple requests for comment before the time of publication.
