(The Center Square) – The Washington State Attorney General’s Office has filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court against O’Reilly’s for allegedly failing to accommodate pregnant employees as required by state law. The lawsuit seeks thousands of dollars in fines against the auto retailer for each alleged incident.
Under state law, employers must make “reasonable” accommodations for pregnant workers unless they demonstrate it would impose undue hardship on the business itself.
However, the lawsuit alleges that O’Reilly’s engaged in systematic refusal to provide those accommodations when requested by pregnant employees.
“Instead of accommodating its pregnant employees as required by state law, O’Reilly routinely rejected their requests for reasonable job modifications and engaged in retaliation such as forcing them to take unpaid leave, demoting them, issuing them negative performance reviews, threatening to terminate them, and actually or constructively discharging them,” the lawsuit states. “To keep their jobs, for example, pregnant employees endured harassment from peers, were forced to continue handling hazardous materials, and exceeded their weight-lifting restrictions.”
During a press conference announcing the lawsuit, a former O’Reilly’s worker said that she was forced to continue lifting heavy objects while pregnant and accidentally hit her stomach. She later gave birth 16 weeks premature, and the baby died five days later.
“I 100 percent believe had I been accommodated there’s a big possibility I could still be pregnant right now,” she said.
The lawsuit seeks $7,500 in fines for each violation of the Consumer Protection Act and $5,000.00 for each violation of that law which “targets or impacts specific individuals or communities based on demographic characteristics including sex,” in addition to legal fees. The lawsuit also seeks monetary damages “or other appropriate monetary relief to each person aggrieved by O’Reilly’s discriminatory conduct.”
