San Francisco Employment Law Firm Blog
FEHA (Fair Employment and Housing Act) prohibits disability discrimination and pregnancy based discrimination in California. To prove a wrongful termination claim based on pregnancy discrimination and failure to provide reasonable accommodations to a pregnant employee at workplace, first she has to prove that her condition constitutes disability within the meaning of the statute Cal. Gov. Code section 12940(m) which prohibits employment discrimination based on actual or perceived disability, as normal pregnancy itself is not considered disability entitling an employee to special accommodations.
Under California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) physical disability is defined as a condition that limits a major life activity. Thus, the female worker must show that a condition arising out of her pregnancy limited one or more of her major life conditions. An employee must specific state which of her daily functions was impaired by the condition arising out of pregnancy and what exactly she was not able to do in a course of her daily life that she would have otherwise been able to do.
In one case, the court rejected the employee’s argument that her morning sickness during pregnancy constituted disability entitling her to the protection of pregnancy and disability discrimination laws. The court stated that according to Fair Employment and Housing Commission regulation 7291.2(g) a woman is “considered to be ‘disabled by pregnancy’ if she is suffering from severe ‘morning sickness’.”