Skip to main content

Pregnant Employee Fired Because of Upcoming Lifting Restrictions? Beware of "Anticipatory Termination" Lawsuit


Cadenas v. Butterfield Health Care II, Inc. - US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division


Facts:   Araceli Cadenas started work at a nursing home facility in September 2011.  The position required assisting residents with a range of motion exercises, placing and removing splints,  assisting with dressing, bathing, and eating, as well as lifting, moving, and physically transferring residents from their beds to their wheelchairs.  The position required Cadenas to push more than twenty pounds when she pushed residents in their wheelchairs.  The employer had an unwritten policy of offering light duty work to employees who had work related injuries, however.  Cadenas delivered a doctor's note to the HR Director in early May 2012 that stated Cadenas was 14 weeks pregnant and that she should not lift, push, or pull over twenty pounds beginning the 20th week of her pregnancy.  In mid May, the HR Director informed Cadenas that the doctor's note was considered a voluntary resignation as the employer did not put people on light duty that are pregnant.  The HR Director also informed Cadenas that she would not be able to continue working but could return to work after her baby was born. 

Cadenas subsequently brought a pregnancy discrimination suit against Butterfield on the grounds that she was unlawfully terminated because of her pregnancy.  Butterfield moved for summary judgment as to the discrimination claim.

Holding:  The District Court denied Butterfield's motion for summary judgment on the grounds that while Butterfield could have lawfully fired Cadenas as of the 20th week of her pregnancy, when it was undisputed she would not longer be able to effectively do her job, Cadenas could not have been lawfully terminated at the 15th week of her pregnancy.  

The Court noted that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination "because of or on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions."  In this case, the Court held that the decision to fire Cadenas could be considered an 'anticipatory termination' and a jury could therefore find a violation of Title VII if the facts presented were true.  The evidence showed that Cadenas could have adequately performed her job from the 15th through the 20th week of her pregnancy.  However, Butterfield failed to present any non-discriminatory reason for terminating Cadenas when she informed them of her pregnancy.  As a result, the Court held that a reasonable jury could find that Cadenas was terminated because of her pregnancy, rather than a lawful basis.

Judgment:  The District Court denied Butterfield's motion for summary judgment and held that a reasonable jury could find that Cadenas' termination was an 'anticipatory termination' as a result of her pregnancy, in violation of Title VII.

The Takeaway:  I think this one really came down to the facts of the case:  Butterfield could not provide a reasonable explanation for why Cadenas was terminated when the facts seemed to establish that the revelation of her pregnancy was the sole justification for her termination.  Even though she could have been lawfully terminated when she could no longer perform her work, the fact that Cadenas could still do the work for another five weeks was pivotal.  Employers need to be cautious when dealing with pregnancy related issues at work...just because an employee is pregnant and might not be able to perform all required job functions in a few days, weeks, months, etc., does not mean that is automatic grounds to lawfully fire them immediately. 

Majority Opinion Judge:  Judge Tharp, Jr.

Date:  July 15, 2014

Opinion:  http://0-www.gpo.gov.librus.hccs.edu/fdsys/pkg/USCOURTS-ilnd-1_12-cv-07750/pdf/USCOURTS-ilnd-1_12-cv-07750-0.pdf


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more