Settlement Agreements

The following information is a summary of the department's findings and contains excerpts from other public documents relevant to this case.

Factual Basis of the Allegations—What the Charging Party Alleged

During the first three months of her pregnancy, Jacqueline Ford, then a veterinary technician at Northern Lights Veterinary Services in Blaine, began to experience a variety of physically disabling symptoms. She vomited to the point of dehydration on several occasions. She became dizzy and feared fainting or falling. She would become physically exhausted and need to sit down.

She asked her employer, Dr. Elizabeth Stoltz, to accommodate her disability by permitting her to work fewer hours, and allowing her to sit instead of stand. Dr. Stoltz refused to adjust her schedule or to provide her with a chair. As her episodes of nausea persisted, Ford missed some days of work; other times, she was late. Although she provided medical documentation for those absences, on November 15, 2007, about two months into her pregnancy, Dr. Stoltz fired her.

Ford filed a charge of discrimination based on pregnancy in May 2008, alleging that she had been fired because she had missed worked due to her pregnancy-related disability, but that she could have been able to perform the essential functions of her job with the accommodations she had requested, if Dr. Stoltz had not denied her request.

Summary of the Commissioner's Memorandum—What the Department's Investigation Found

In answering the charge, respondent Stoltz argued that the clinic had not discriminated against Ford on the basis of sex and/or disability, but had fired her for legitimate reasons. The clinic had discharged Ford, as it had stated on a state unemployment insurance form, for excessive absenteeism from mid-October to mid-November and for not calling or showing up for work on November 14, 2007, the day before she was terminated. "It was assumed she was abandoning her position," the clinic stated.

In its investigation, the Department of Human Rights determined that the clinic's claim that it fired Ford for not calling or showing up for work on November 14 was not credible. There was sufficient evidence to show that Ford did call the office on November 14, at the same time of day and for the same duration as calls on other days. The evidence also indicated that the clinic did not require employees to call in sick daily, or produce doctor's notes, if their absence was considered credible. But even with daily calls and doctor's notes, the clinic did not consider Ford illnesses or absences to be credible, "at least in part because of the experiences of other pregnant employees who had not had the same difficulties as the charging party," the department found. "The respondent owner apparently relied on her own opinions about how a pregnant employee should be affected by her pregnancy, rather than on the doctor's notes explaining the absences," the department's investigation concluded.

The department found probable cause to believe that Ford's firing was wrongfully motivated by her pregnancy and disability related to pregnancy, and that Ford's termination constituted illegal discrimination in violation of the Human Rights Act.

The charging party's concerns about the clinic's failure to accommodate her disability were moot, the department found. Although no employer may discriminate on the basis of pregnancy or disability, only employers with 15 or more employees are required to provide reasonable accommodation under the Act, and the clinic never employed 15 people or more. The evidence also suggested that Ford had been allowed to sit intermittently and to work six hours a day, per her doctor's instructions, the department noted.

Terms of Settlement

In a negotiated settlement, Northern Lights Veterinary Services agreed:

1. To pay Jacqueline Ford $13,000;
2. To develop and adopt a written policy regarding discrimination on the basis of sex and pregnancy;
3. That its president will attend the department's 26th Annual Human Rights Day Conference;
4. That it reaffirms its commitment to comply with the Minnesota Human Rights Act.

This settlement agreement does not constitute an admission of any liability, an admission of a violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act or any other law, or an admission of wrongdoing by the respondent.