Opinion ID: 2973259
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Pregnancy Discrimination Claim

Text: “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from ‘discharg[ing] any individual . . . because of such individual’s . . . sex.’” Turic v. Holland Hospitality, Inc., 85 F.3d 1211, 1213 (6th Cir. 1996) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1)). The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (“PDA”), an amendment to Title VII, extended the prohibition on discharging employees “‘on the basis of sex’” to firing women because of pregnancy. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(k). The PDA requires employers to treat “women affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions . . . the same for all employment-related purposes . . . as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work.” Id. Likewise, the KCRA prohibits employers from discharging an employee because of sex or pregnancy. Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 344.040 (2003). In fact, “the Kentucky . . . statute is specially modeled after the Federal law.” Cf. Harker v. Fed. Land Bank, 679 S.W.2d 226, 229 (Ky. 1984) (referring to the age discrimination provisions of the KCRA). Consequently, in interpreting the KCRA, “we must consider the way the Federal act has been interpreted.” Id. Under the KCRA and Title VII, an employee can demonstrate discrimination by her employer in one of three ways. She can proffer direct evidence of discrimination, present circumstantial evidence that permits an inference of discrimination, or show “that both legitimate -6- and illegitimate (discriminatory) reasons — in other words, ‘mixed motives’ — motivated the adverse employment decision.” Harris v. Giant Eagle, Inc., 133 F. App’x. 288, 296 (6th Cir. 2005); see also Johnson v. Kroger Co., 319 F.3d 858, 864–65 (6th Cir. 2003) (identifying methods of proof for a Title VII claim premised on racial discrimination). Bergman attempts to prove her pregnancy discrimination claim by direct and circumstantial evidence; she makes no allegation that BHS was motivated by mixed-motives. Therefore, her claim will be evaluated under the direct and circumstantial analyses only, but by no method of proof could a reasonable jury return a verdict in Bergman’s favor.
Employment discrimination is established by direct evidence when the employee comes forth with “evidence [that] requires the conclusion that unlawful discrimination was at least a motivating factor in the employer’s actions.” Jacklyn v. Schering-Plough Healthcare Prods. Sales Corp., 176 F.3d 921, 926 (6th Cir. 1999). The discrimination is proven without resort to inference: that the employee was a victim of discrimination appears plain on the face of the evidence. See Rowan v. Lockheed Martin Energy Sys., Inc., 360 F.3d 544, 548 (6th Cir. 2004) (“Direct evidence is evidence that proves the existence of a fact without requiring any inferences.”). After the employee comes forward with direct evidence of discrimination, “the burden of both production and persuasion shifts to the employer to prove that it would have terminated the employee even if it had not been motivated by impermissible discrimination.” Nguyen v. City of Cleveland, 229 F.3d 559, 563 (6th Cir. 2000). Bergman has presented no direct evidence of pregnancy discrimination. The only evidence -7- that connects her termination to her pregnancy is the time correlation between it and her firing and the ambiguous “risk” statement that Hayes attributed to Thomas. The mere fact that Bergman’s termination coincided with her pregnancy does not prove pregnancy discrimination without resort to inference. The Thomas statement — that Bergman was a risk that they could not have — does not prove discrimination independently or even in tandem with the timing of her firing. Thomas might have been referring to risk to the children in the daycare center from being put in the care of a teacher who could not lift anything. Given this ambiguity, the risk statement cannot be construed as direct evidence of pregnancy discrimination.
An employee proves employment discrimination through circumstantial evidence by creating a presumption of discrimination and challenging the employer to rebut the presumption by legitimating its employment action. See Texas Dep’t of Cmty. Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 252 (1981); McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 (1973). McDonnell-Douglas and Burdine set forth the “basic allocation of burdens and order of presentation of proof” for circumstantial evidence cases. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 252. The plaintiff must prove by a preponderance of the evidence a prima facie case of employment discrimination. Id. at 252-53. The nature of the alleged discrimination determines the elements of the prima facie case, compare Cline v. Catholic Diocese of Toledo, 206 F.3d 651, 658 (6th Cir. 2000) (setting out elements of a prima facie case of pregnancy discrimination), with Peltier v. United States, 388 F.3d 984, 987 (6th Cir. 2004) (setting out elements of a prima facie case of gender discrimination), but the burden of establishing it is never “onerous.” Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253. Once the employee has met its burden -8- of proving a prima facie case of discrimination, “the burden shifts to the [employer] ‘to articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for [its employment action].’” Id. (quoting McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802). If the employer carries its burden, the burden shifts back to the employee to prove that the articulated justifications for the employment action are merely pretexts for discrimination. Id. The employee can show pretext by demonstrating that the nondiscriminatory reasons offered for the employment action (1) have no basis in fact; (2) did not really motivate the employment action; or (3) were insufficient to justify the employment action. Manzer v. Diamond Shamrock Chems. Co., 29 F.3d 1078, 1084 (6th Cir. 1994). “The ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff remains at all times with the plaintiff,” Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253, despite “the division of intermediate evidentiary burdens.” Id. To make out a prima facie case of pregnancy discrimination, Bergman must show: “1) she was pregnant, 2) she was qualified for her job, 3) she was subjected to an adverse employment decision, and 4) there is a nexus between her pregnancy and the adverse employment decision.” Cline, 206 F.3d at 658. Bergman has established the first three elements of her prima facie case. She was approximately five months pregnant when she was terminated, and, as the district court noted when it corrected its analytical error, she was qualified for her job as an infant teacher. The fourth element of the prima facie case requires Bergman to show, at a minimum, that Hayes knew Bergman was pregnant when making the decision to terminate her and that the termination was proximate to her pregnancy. See DeBoer v. Murashi Auto Parts, Inc., 124 F.App’x. 387, 391 (6th Cir. 2005) (finding that temporal proximity satisfied nexus requirement); Prebilich-Holland v. Gaylord -9- Entertertainment Co., 297 F.3d 438, 443-44 (6th Cir. 2002) (finding employer’s knowledge of pregnancy a requirement of the nexus element). Bergman has made this showing: Hayes knew Bergman was pregnant and was apprised of Bergman’s pregnancy complications, and Hayes terminated Bergman while she was pregnant. Thus, Bergman has made out a prima facie case of pregnancy discrimination. BHS, however, has carried its burden of rebutting the presumption of intentional discrimination. The legitimate, nondiscriminatory motive put forth by BHS is that the daycare center had no position that Bergman could fill while working half-days with a total restriction on lifting. Because BHS indicated that it terminated Bergman because it could not accommodate her restriction, Bergman must expose this proffered justification as a pretext for pregnancy discrimination. To establish pretext, Bergman argues that BHS should have probed to determine precisely what work she could perform while under the light-duty restriction. Bergman cannot establish pretext by arguing that BHS should have investigated her restriction when she interpreted the restriction for Hayes and indicated that it prohibited her from lifting anything. BHS can rely on Bergman’s own interpretation of her doctor’s instructions. But even if BHS should have determined independently the amount of work that Bergman could perform, that does not indicate that BHS’s justification for terminating her was pretextual. It does not demonstrate that Bergman in fact could have performed some job at the daycare center, that BHS really acted on the ulterior motive of discriminating against her, or that BHS’s belief that the daycare center had no job that Bergman could perform was insufficient to justify terminating her. See Manzer, 29 F.3d at 1084 (holding that the employee can establish pretext only by showing that the employer’s proferred non- -10- discriminatory reason for the termination had no basis in fact, did not motivate the termination, or was insufficient to justify the termination). Likewise, Bergman’s observation that other employees were permitted to work part-time, with restrictions, or take extended LOA’s does not establish pretext. This observation does not go to the issue of whether BHS could accommodate Bergman’s particular restriction in the daycare center. The employees Bergman identified worked throughout the hospital and had restrictions that permitted them to work different amounts under different circumstances. No employee Bergman identified worked in the daycare center and was restricted to working half-days without lifting for four months. The one daycare center employee who had a total lifting restriction presumably could work full-time and only was prohibited from lifting for one month. Therefore, her restriction was much less difficult to accommodate than Bergman’s. Consequently, BHS’s accommodation of her restriction does not imply that its reason for terminating Bergman was pretextual. More significantly, however, BHS’s prior accommodation of Bergman’s twenty-pound-lifting restriction suggests that BHS accommodated Bergman to the greatest extent possible and only terminated her when it reached the limit of its accommodations.