In McKenna v. Santander Investment Securities, Inc. et al, 21cv941 (DLC), 2022 WL 2986588 (S.D.N.Y. July 28, 2022), the court, inter alia, held that plaintiff’s pregnancy discrimination claim (in part) survived summary judgment.
Here, plaintiff alleged pregnancy discrimination based on two pregnancies, one in 2019, and one in 2020. The court reached different decisions regarding each.
From the decision:
McKenna has presented sufficient evidence to raise a question of fact as to whether the Defendants discriminated against her as a result of her 2019 pregnancy by reducing her bonuses below the amount she would otherwise have been given, by failing to return some of her accounts to her when she returned from maternity leave, and by planning for and then implementing the termination of her employment in 2020. While the Defendants have provided legitimate reasons for each of those decisions, the disputed issues of fact must be resolved at trial.
The court reached the opposite conclusion regarding his 2020 pregnancy, however, and dismissed those claims, since she “cannot show that her 2020 pregnancy motivated, even partly, the decision to fire her.” Specifically, the court noted that defendant “began to work on a restructuring plan for McKenna’s position many months before McKenna became pregnant and many months before she advised anyone at Santander that she was pregnant.”