Poker Room Worker With a High-Risk Pregnancy Asked to Miss Six Shifts — the EEOC Says a Two-Week Absence Policy Forced Her to Quit

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A Florida poker room is facing a federal lawsuit after the EEOC says it treated time off for pregnancy like a hard math problem: two weeks out, and you’re done. The agency alleges that when a worker with a high-risk pregnancy asked for a short stretch of missed shifts, the company’s attendance policy kicked in and she was pushed out instead of accommodated.

The case targets BestBet Jacksonville, described by the government as the largest poker room in Florida, and it’s being brought under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. The EEOC laid out its claims in the original post announcing the lawsuit.

Six shifts turned into a resignation

At the center of the filing is one woman’s request in January 2025. The EEOC says she had a high-risk pregnancy and, on her doctor’s advice, requested to miss six shifts over a two-and-a-half-week period.

That’s the kind of request that sounds small on paper—six shifts, not months—but the timeline matters. Because the absences would stretch across more than two weeks, the EEOC alleges the company treated it as crossing a line that triggered resignation.

According to the lawsuit, BestBet maintained a strict policy requiring employees to resign if they missed two weeks or more of work and didn’t otherwise qualify for leave under the Family Medical Leave Act. The EEOC says that policy left the worker boxed in: she needed a short, medically advised break, and the company’s response was to force her to quit.

A second worker says she was pushed out, too

The complaint doesn’t stop with one person. The EEOC says another BestBet employee was also forced to leave the company in February 2025 after she requested leave to have her baby.

The agency characterizes it as a broader pattern, alleging a “class of pregnant employees” was denied reasonable accommodations. In other words, the suit isn’t presented as a one-off scheduling dispute—it’s framed as an approach to pregnancy-related leave requests that the EEOC says crossed the legal line.

In a workplace like a poker room, missing shifts can ripple quickly: schedules are tight, customer traffic comes in waves, and staffing changes can feel immediate. But the EEOC’s position is that operational inconvenience doesn’t automatically excuse denying an accommodation when the request is reasonable and doesn’t impose an undue hardship.

Why the EEOC is focusing on the two-week rule

The key detail in the EEOC’s announcement is the policy itself: resign if you miss two weeks or more and don’t qualify for FMLA. The agency says the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires employers to reasonably accommodate known limitations related to pregnancy and childbirth, unless doing so would be an undue hardship.

And the EEOC is explicitly calling out that accommodations can include modifying how an employer applies its own leave limits. The lawsuit, as described by the agency, treats the two-week resignation rule not as neutral housekeeping but as something that may need flexibility when pregnancy-related limitations are involved.

Kristen Foslid, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Miami District Office, put it bluntly in the release: “Federal law makes it unlawful for employers to refuse to make a reasonable accommodation for the known limitations of a pregnant worker, absent undue hardship.” She also emphasized that employers must engage in an “interactive dialogue” to find a workable accommodation rather than denying requests outright.

From workplace request to federal court

This didn’t go straight from a missed schedule to a courtroom. The EEOC says it first tried to resolve the matter through its administrative conciliation process, which is essentially an attempt at pre-litigation settlement.

When that didn’t produce an agreement, the agency filed suit: EEOC v. BestBet Jacksonville, Inc., Case No. 3:26-cv-00704. It’s in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Evangeline Hawthorne, the EEOC’s Miami District Director, said the case involved multiple women who “requested and were denied reasonable accommodations,” and she added that the agency “will not hesitate to litigate” when employers “blatantly ignore federal law.” That line signals how the EEOC wants this read: not as a misunderstanding, but as a refusal to budge even after requests were made.

What people zeroed in on: documentation and the “interactive process”

Even without public comments included in the EEOC release, the fault lines are obvious. When a policy says “two weeks and you’re out,” people tend to focus on whether the employer actually explored alternatives or simply enforced the rule like a trapdoor.

The phrase “interactive dialogue” is doing a lot of work here. In real workplaces, that often means back-and-forth: What does the doctor recommend? Which shifts can be covered? Can duties be adjusted temporarily? Can leave be broken up, or can the timeline be tweaked? The EEOC is signaling that the legally safer path is to treat a pregnancy-related request as a problem to solve, not a reason to separate the worker.

It also puts a spotlight on paperwork. A request tied to medical advice, dates, and specific limitations is very different from a vague “I need time off.” The agency’s summary already includes doctor-advised timing and a defined number of shifts, suggesting the employee’s request was concrete enough to evaluate—yet the EEOC says the company’s response was resignation, not accommodation.

Where it leaves workers who don’t qualify for FMLA

A lot of people hear “leave” and think FMLA is the whole game. But the allegations here focus on what happens when someone doesn’t qualify for FMLA and still needs pregnancy-related time off or modifications. The EEOC’s case is essentially: the absence of FMLA eligibility doesn’t erase an employer’s obligations under the PWFA.

For workers, that’s the gut-level stake. A high-risk pregnancy can mean sudden restrictions, unexpected appointments, or short stretches where working isn’t safe. If the only option offered is “resign,” the choice isn’t really a choice—especially when paychecks, insurance, and job continuity are on the line.

For BestBet Jacksonville, the lawsuit sets up a direct test of whether its two-week absence policy, applied the way the EEOC describes, can survive under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. And for everyone watching, the message from the EEOC is clear: pregnancy-related requests aren’t supposed to be handled with a one-size-fits-all cutoff.