Life Care Centers of America, Inc. has agreed to pay $170,000 to a former employee at its nursing home in Puyallup, Washington, to settle a discrimination lawsuit brought against the company for putting a pregnant woman on unpaid, involuntary leave after refusing to accommodate her request not to life more than 15 pounds late in her pregnancy.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced the settlement Monday for the certified nursing assistant (CNA), who was employed in 2015 at the Life Care Center of South Hill located south of Seattle, Washington.
According to the EEOC's suit filed in September 2018, Life Care said that it only provided light duty to employees injured on the job, not pregnant employees. The EEOC also alleged Life Care supervisors told the worker, who was seeking to avoid heavy lifting during the final months of her pregnancy, to reapply for a CNA job once she was ready to return to unrestricted duty. The worker said she understood that to mean that she was fired.
Denying light duty to a pregnant employee while providing it to similarly-abled non-pregnant employees may violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the EEOC said in a statement.
"An employer may not reject an employee's request for pregnancy-related work restrictions if the same employer is granting the light duty request of a non-pregnant employee," said Nancy Sienko, director of the EEOC's Seattle Field Office. "This suit serves to remind employers of that obligation."
Under the three-year consent decree, Life Care agreed to pay the employee $170,000 in lost wages and compensatory damages and provide training on Title VII and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act to all employees, including management and supervisors at its Washington state facilities.
John Stanley, the supervisory trial attorney for the EEOC, said the lawsuit was filed as part of the agency's efforts "to address emerging and developing issues in equal employment law, including accommodating pregnancy-related limitations" for working women who are pregnant.
Since the 2015 incident that provoked the EEOC lawsuit, Life Care Centers has altered its company policies and retrained its staff to conform with the federal regulations for pregnant workers.
"We are encouraged that Life Care will take affirmative steps to implement policies and training that ensure employees with pregnancy-related work restrictions have their light duty requests properly considered," Stanley said.
Life Care Centers, headquartered in Cleveland, Tennessee, is the nation's biggest privately owned nursing home chain with more than 200 skilled nursing home facilities in 28 states.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340.