Dollar General fires woman for ‘health reasons’ — pregnancy, feds say. Now it must pay
A former Dollar General employee is owed thousands of dollars after she was fired from her job the moment she told a store manager she was pregnant, according to federal officials.
“Since you are pregnant, you can no longer work here,” the store manager told the worker at a Dollar General in Baldwin, Georgia in September 2020, a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on the woman’s behalf says.
The sales associate then received a separation that said she was being fired for “health reasons,” according to a complaint, which says she was fired due to her pregnancy.
The EEOC sued Dollar General in September 2022, accusing it of pregnancy discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by firing the woman who was fully capable of performing her job, McClatchy News previously reported.
Now, Dollar General will pay $42,500 in damages to its former employee to settle the federal lawsuit, the EEOC announced in an Oct. 11 news release.
McClatchy News contacted Dollar General and attorneys who represented the company for comment on Oct. 12 and didn’t receive immediate responses.
“We hope this case conveys the seriousness of pregnancy discrimination allegations to employers,” Marcus G. Keegan, a regional attorney for the EEOC’s Atlanta District Office, said in a statement.
“A woman’s decision to work while she is pregnant rests solely with her,” Keegan previously said when the agency announced the filing of the lawsuit.
Hours after the woman was fired on Sept. 15, 2020, the Dollar General store manager called her apologizing and asked if she could do “light duty” work for two hours each day, according to the complaint.
The woman told the manager in a text message exchange that she would need more hours since she would only earn about $100 each week, the complaint says.
“Will that be safe? How many (hours) are you thinking,” the store manager texted the woman back in reply, according to the EEOC.
Days later, the woman was formally terminated with the separation notice, the complaint says.
As part of the lawsuit settlement, Dollar General must “revise its anti-discrimination policies; provide annual training to its managers on Title VII; and allow the EEOC to monitor complaints of discrimination,” the EEOC said.
Baldwin is 75 miles northeast of Atlanta.
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