Cases are just now starting to come out involving the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). For lessons on how one employer ran afoul of its obligations, read on.
Timeline
It’s often helpful in a factually dense case to break events into a timeline:
- Taylor King is a registered nurse (RN) working as a case manager for hospice service provider Legacy, which requires her to visit patients’ homes. She started in October 2023.
- When hired, her job description included the ability to “lift, position and/or transfer patients.” No further details.
- On January 23, 2024, she learned that she was pregnant.
- On March 24, she emailed HR to tell them that according to her doctor, she could lift no more than 25 pounds.
- On May 16, she met with HR and her managers. They expressed concern that she couldn’t do her job with the lifting restriction. She responded that she was using a “buddy” system whereby a certified nursing assistant would drop by the home and assist her.
- Message to King: You’re fired. Why? The 25-pound lifting restriction prevented her from performing an “integral aspect” of her job, and the company couldn’t accommodate her by requiring another employe to be present at all times.
King filed a PWFA lawsuit, and the court denied the company’s request to toss the claim.
1,2,3: Request Denied
The court systematically analyzed King’s claim:
Did Legacy know about her limitation? Yes. She clearly told the company about her restriction that was a result of her pregnancy.
Was lifting an essential job function? A reasonable accommodation doesn’t require an employer to relieve an employee of an essential job function. Well, here, whether lifting was an essential function was debatable. The job description was silent as a mouse on whether a case manager is required to lift alone, and it stated no specific amount of weight that managers are required to lift. If lifting was an essential function, you’d expect a more robust description of the why and the how. Moreover, the description simply listed lifting under a generic “Qualifications” heading, not under “Essential Functions.” So, a jury will need to determine whether lifting was an essential function.
Could the limitation be reasonably accommodated? Here, the company failed to even enter into a dialogue with King on whether it could accommodate her limitation. It just threw up its hands and fired her. Note as well that she wasn’t asking for a full-time employee to be hired to follow her around and help with the lifting. Yes, that would be an accommodation but an unreasonable one. Rather, she was only asking for “buddy” visits on an as-needed basis involving the use of current employees.
While Legacy need not grant King’s preferred accommodation, it must still investigate the facts on the reasonableness of the accommodation. If it had, it would have learned that the buddy system was infrequently used, that the assistants were invested with flexibility in setting their schedules so they could show up when King needed them, and that she could coordinate her visits with their schedules. So, it will be up to jury to decide if this was a reasonable accommodation. Remember: It’s not what you don’t know that hurts you—it’s what you think is so that isn’t. Don’t assume anything when thinking about whether an accommodation would be reasonable.
Would an accommodation impose an undue hardship on Legacy? Proving this defense carries a heavy burden for the employer. Here are the top three factors to consider:
- The nature and net cost of the accommodation needed under the PWFA;
- The overall financial resources of the facility or facilities involved in providing the reasonable accommodation, the number of persons employed at such facility, and the effect on expenses and resources; and
- The overall financial resources of the company.
But the company here didn’t put pen to paper and crank out any numbers. Rather, it merely argued that the accommodation wasn’t “feasible” and would have an adverse ”impact” on the nursing assistants’ ability to perform their duties. The court deadpanned its response: “Of importance, Legacy does not elaborate as to what that impact is though.”
As I tell my students, a conclusion (as with Legacy’s argument) is like a donut—it looks pretty, tastes yummy, but has zero nutritional value.
And as long as I am at it, Legacy could have talked to the assistants to see how King’s proposed accommodation affected them as opposed to speculating on how it affected them. King’s lawyer deposed one assistant who testified:
Q: In helping King, did it cause you to spend more time at the patient’s house than you normally would?
A: Not really.
Q: Did helping King interfere with your ability to do what you needed to do?
A: No. It didn’t bother me at all. I didn’t mind helping her.
So, yet again, there was conflicting evidence, and the jury will decide the merits of the undue burden defense. King v. Legacy Hospice of the South (S.D. Miss., 2026).
Bottom Line
While still new, the PWFA is here, and it has teeth. Here are some best practices to consider:
- Be sure to let managers know there’s now a new game in town.
- Understand the importance of developing all of the facts before taking action against an employee.
- Read the PFWA regulations governing your conduct. The facts need to be filtered through the regs. By way of example, the regs permit suspending essential functions as a reasonable accommodation.
Be prepared.
Michael P. Maslanka is a professor at the UNT-Dallas College of Law. You can reach him at michael.maslanka@untdallas.edu.