Dive Brief:
- Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based iPro Dental Laboratory will pay $5,000 in back pay and $25,000 in compensatory damages to settle allegations it fired a newly hired employee after learning she was pregnant, according to a consent decree filed April 3 in EEOC v. iPro Dental Laboratory, Inc.
- According to the complaint in the case, the worker left to attend an approved doctor’s appointment on her second day. The general manager allegedly noticed the appointment was with an OBGYN and asked if she was pregnant, and the worker confirmed she was. She was fired three days later.
- In addition to paying $30,000 to the worker, iPro agreed to appoint a third-party equal employment opportunity coordinator to attend multiple compliance training sessions, serve as a resource to iPro’s managers and HR personnel, assist with discrimination complaints and more, per the consent decree.
Dive Insight:
The case is one of many the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has pursued in the past few years as it has shined a spotlight on pregnancy discrimination in the wake of the newly enacted Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. The law took effect in June 2023 and expanded pregnant workers’ rights in the workplace.
While the focus on pregnant workers has expanded with the PWFA, EEOC v. iPro Dental Laboratory leaned on much older protections in the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In 1978, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act amended Title VII, then 14 years old; it has been interpreted to include discrimination based on past, current or potential pregnancy, as well as pregnancy-related conditions like breastfeeding and having or choosing not to have an abortion.
The more recent PWFA requires covered employers to provide a reasonable accommodation to a worker’s known limitation related to pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition, unless doing so would pose an undue hardship.
Pregnant workers are also protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act, EEOC has explained; while pregnancy itself is not considered a disability, certain conditions developed during pregnancy, such as gestational diabetes, nausea or cervical insufficiency, can qualify as disabilities protected under the ADA.
EEOC’s pregnancy-related cases in the past year have tackled employers’ alleged failure to provide leave as a reasonable accommodation; failure to allow accommodations like sitting, taking breaks or working part-time; refusal to provide pregnancy-related accommodations at all; and failure to provide leave following a stillbirth, among others.
“Employers cannot force workers out of their jobs because of pregnancy,” Kristen Foslid, regional attorney for EEOC’s Miami office, said in a statement released Tuesday. “The law is clear that pregnancy cannot be the basis for denying employment opportunities.”
iPro Dental Laboratory did not respond to a request for comment by press time; however, per the consent decree, the company did not admit liability or wrongdoing and entered the consent decree to resolve the case “without further expense, litigation, or adjudication.”