Pregnant Employee Handed Over Her Doctor’s Lifting Note — Company Officials Called It “Not Good Enough,” Sent Her Home, and Fired Her the Next Day

Photo credit: AI-generated image created using ChatGPT. Illustrative only.

A pregnant worker showed up with a doctor’s note limiting how much she could lift, expecting that to be the end of it. Instead, the company allegedly looked at the note, told her it wasn’t “not good enough,” sent her home, and fired her the very next day.

That story is one of the examples in a new federal lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against North American Lighting, Inc. (NAL), an automotive lighting manufacturer with multiple facilities in Illinois, detailed in the agency’s announcement. The EEOC says the pattern wasn’t limited to one person or one plant—its complaint describes a broader refusal to accommodate pregnant employees’ lifting restrictions and nursing mothers’ needs.

A doctor’s note turned into a door-to-the-parking-lot moment

The EEOC alleges that across NAL’s Illinois facilities, pregnant employees who brought in lifting restrictions were met with pushback instead of adjustments to keep them working. In the most jarring example, one employee presented a doctor’s note and was allegedly told by company officials that it was “not good enough.”

What came next, according to the complaint, is the part that makes the workplace power imbalance feel stark. The employee was sent home, and the next day she was fired. The officials allegedly added a line that’s hard to forget: “we don’t want to be responsible if you miscarry.”

Even without the full back-and-forth details, the sequence matters: documentation provided, dismissed, worker removed from the job, termination immediately following. It’s the kind of timeline that doesn’t feel like a misunderstanding—it feels like a decision.

Unpaid leave wasn’t a lifeline—it was the path to termination

The EEOC lawsuit also describes another pregnant worker whose experience followed a different route to the same end. Instead of being accommodated, the employee was allegedly placed on unpaid leave.

Unpaid leave can sound like a compromise until bills are due and paychecks stop. And in this account, the leave didn’t protect the job long-term. The EEOC says the worker was fired when her leave expired.

That detail is important because it frames the alleged practice as more than “take time off if you need it.” The agency’s position is that an employer can’t use leave as a default answer when a reasonable accommodation would allow someone to keep working.

The lawsuit says light duty existed—just not for pregnant workers

The EEOC’s complaint draws a sharp comparison: NAL allegedly provided light-duty assignments to employees who had lifting restrictions from on-the-job injuries. But when pregnant employees had restrictions tied to pregnancy, the company allegedly refused to do the same.

One worker, the EEOC says, was explicitly told she was being denied light duty because her restriction didn’t come from an on-the-job injury. That kind of statement—if proven—makes the policy difference easy to see: accommodations were available, but the door allegedly closed when the reason for the restriction was pregnancy.

From a worker’s perspective, it’s a blunt message. If you get hurt at work, the company finds a way to keep you on the clock. If you’re pregnant, you may be told you’re a liability instead.

Nursing mothers say they were pushed out in quieter ways

The EEOC’s lawsuit isn’t only about pregnancy and lifting. It also alleges that NAL failed to accommodate nursing mothers who needed breaks and a private place to pump breast milk.

According to the agency, women were required to pump in their cars or in rooms without locks. The complaint also alleges they were denied adequate time to pump. In one example, an employee asked to continue taking a single pumping break during lunch beyond one year after childbirth, and the EEOC says the company refused.

The practical effect of that kind of denial adds up fast. Pumping isn’t something you can “power through” for an entire shift without consequences, and privacy isn’t a luxury when you’re being asked to handle a medical and bodily need at work. The EEOC says some women were forced to quit.

People zeroed in on paperwork, timelines, and who gets accommodated

When disputes like this hit the public, the conversation often turns to what can be proven. The examples in the EEOC’s case read like the kind of workplace conflict where the paper trail is everything: a lifting note, a supervisor’s response, a sudden send-home order, a termination the next day.

Another practical focus is comparison. The lawsuit’s allegation that NAL offered light duty for on-the-job injuries but not for pregnancy-related restrictions is the kind of detail that tends to stick, because it’s easy to visualize on a factory floor. If a “light duty” lane exists for one group, people want to know why it allegedly didn’t exist for another.

And then there’s the use of leave. When an employer pushes a worker onto unpaid leave instead of adjusting tasks, many people read that as a slow-motion firing—especially if the job ends the moment the leave expires, as the EEOC alleges happened here.

What the EEOC is asking the court to do

The agency filed the lawsuit under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which requires reasonable accommodations for limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions—unless the accommodation would cause an undue hardship for the business. The EEOC’s acting general counsel, Catherine Eschbach, said the law means employers can’t force pregnant workers onto leave or push nursing mothers out when a reasonable accommodation would allow them to keep working.

The case is filed as U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. North American Lighting, Inc., Case No. 3:26-cv-01032, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. The EEOC says it tried to resolve the matter through its administrative conciliation process before suing.

The agency is seeking monetary damages, including back pay as well as compensatory and punitive damages. It’s also asking for injunctive relief—court-ordered changes meant to prevent similar alleged conduct in the future.

For the workers described in the complaint, the stakes aren’t abstract. A lifting limit can be the difference between staying employed and losing health insurance. A locked room and enough time to pump can be the difference between coming back after childbirth and having to quit. The lawsuit now puts those choices—and the company’s alleged responses—under a court’s scrutiny.