Women and Justice: Keywords

The plaintiff, a cook and assistant manager at the defendant’s pizza franchise, informed her employer that she was pregnant. The defendant offered her the position of a backup night driver—a position she had held before—and proposed that his son replace her as the assistant manager while she took maternity leave. When she refused, the defendant informed her that if she did not accept the temporary reassignment, he had no other position for her. She quit soon after and sued in the Davidson County Circuit Court for pregnancy discrimination in violation of the Tennessee Human Rights Act (“THRA”). The Court entered a directed verdict in favor of her employer, and the Court of Appeals of Tennessee affirmed, finding that the plaintiff had failed to establish a prima facie case that the defendant discriminated against her because she was pregnant.