The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently joined the Second, Sixth, and Tenth Circuits in holding that where an employer shows that it had legitimate non-discriminatory reasons for firing a pregnant employee (e.g., non-performance), a mere fact that the employee was fired shortly after telling her employer that she was pregnant, doesn’t defeat employer’s stated reasons for termination.
In this case, the employee had a documented history of poor work performance and multiple write ups. Two months after she told her supervisor she was pregnant, she was terminated for poor performance. The employee argued that poor performance was just a pretext, but that she was really fired for being pregnant. The employer argued that pregnancy had nothing to do with it and that it had legitimate non-discriminatory for firing the employee. The employee claimed that another management-employee told her during a social lunch that she was fired for being pregnant, but the court excluded this evidence as hearsay. So, the only evidence of pregnancy discrimination that the employee could point to was the timing of her termination, which happened shortly after she told the employer she was pregnant. The Fifth Circuit found that this fact alone was not enough to establish that the employer’s stated reasons for termination were just a pretext. Thus, theemployee must have other additional evidence to support its pregnancy discrimination claim.
TAKEAWAY: Where an employer shows it had legitimate non-discriminatory reasons for firing a pregnant employee, the fact that the employee was fired shortly after telling her employer she was pregnant, without more, won’t be sufficient to establish that employer’s stated reasons for termination were a pretext.
Leiza Dolghih is the founder of Dolghih Law Group PLLC. She is board certified in labor and employment law and has 16+ years of experience in commercial and employment litigation, including trade secrets and non-compete disputes. You can contact her directly at leiza@dlg-legal.com or (214) 531-2403.