Where a woman alleged that her limited-term employment ended because of her pregnancy, but the record showed that there wasn’t enough work to justify her continued employment, the employer prevailed on her discrimination and retaliation claims.
Background
Allison Blanchard filed this action against her former employer, Arlington County, Virginia. The remaining counts are: (i) pregnancy discrimination; (ii) Title VII retaliation; (iii) disability discrimination; (iv) retaliation pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA and (v) Family and Medical Leave Act, or FMLA, retaliation. Defendant has filed a motion for summary judgment.
Pregnancy discrimination
Based almost entirely on the interactions between herself and her supervisor, Michelle Congdon, from 2017-19, plaintiff claims that her 2020 termination was due to pregnancy discrimination. As plaintiff concedes, however, all of these interactions are well beyond the 300-day lookback period and well before plaintiff’s termination on March 5, 2020.
Even if plaintiff had established a prima facie case, defendant proffers that there was not enough work to justify plaintiff’s continued employment as a limited-term employee. Plaintiff offers two arguments that defendant’s proffered legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason is pretextual: (i) there were projects to which plaintiff could have been assigned and (ii) plaintiff was not assigned any new projects upon her return from maternity leave. These arguments are...
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