In Konate v. Actalent, Inc., Civil Action No. 23-4210 (ZNQ) (JBD), 2025 WL 289212 (D.N.J. Jan. 24, 2025), the court, inter alia, denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claims of pregnancy discrimination.
As to plaintiff’s claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Law of 1964 – after explaining the black-letter law applicable to this claim – the court applied it to the facts as follows:
Here, as to Distek, Plaintiff has sufficiently pled a cause of action for sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy. First, the SAC sufficiently alleges that Plaintiff was almost six-months pregnant when she was hired. (SAC. ¶30.) At least one person in a supervisory role at Distek, Burton, knew that Plaintiff was pregnant because Plaintiff sought permission from Burton to leave work early for a prenatal doctor’s appointment.5 (Id. ¶¶46–48.) Plaintiff also plausibly alleges that, because she was approximately seven-months pregnant, her pregnancy was evident to an observer.
The SAC further demonstrates a nexus between Plaintiff’s termination and her pregnancy based on temporal proximity.6 Here, temporal proximity between Burton’s (and by extension, Distek’s) knowledge of Plaintiff’s pregnancy and the adverse action establishes an inference because Plaintiff was fired on March 13, 2023, 11 days after attending her prenatal doctor’s appointment on March 2, 2023.7 (Id. ¶¶47, 49.) There is no mention in the SAC of a discussion between Distek’s employees (or Actalent’s recruiters) and Plaintiff about Plaintiff’s work performance or of any reprimand regarding Plaintiff’s alleged absences from work which would support an alternative basis for terminating Plaintiff.
At this stage, “the issue is not whether a plaintiff will ultimately prevail, but whether the claimant is entitled to offer evidence to support the claims.” Swierkiewicz, 534 U.S. at 511 (quoting Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974)). Accordingly, taking the allegations in the SAC as true, Plaintiff has sufficiently pled a plausible claim of sex discrimination based on pregnancy under Title VII against Distek. Golod v. Bank of America Corp., 403 Fed. App’x 699, 702 (3d Cir. 2010) (“Plaintiff has the burden of pleading sufficient factual matter that permits the reasonable inference that [she] was terminated … because of her … sex.”).
The court further explained that, for the same reasons, plaintiff also sufficiently pled a plausible claim of pregnancy discrimination under the NJ Law Against Discrimination, pursuant to the unequal or unfavorable treatment theory.