The company says she quit. She says she was forced out weeks before her due date
A pregnant specialist says her employer disciplined the manager she'd complained about, kept him as her boss, then forced her out.
That is the account in a lawsuit filed July 13, 2026 in federal court in Miami against Abbott Laboratories and St. Jude Medical, the cardiac-device unit the complaint says Abbott owns and controls. The plaintiff, a former clinical specialist, worked cardiac-device cases across a South Florida territory; the filing names both companies as her joint employers.
She was hired in August 2024 and learned she was pregnant that December, the complaint says. On December 29, 2024, she emailed the company's HR service center to disclose the pregnancy and ask about accommodations.
Within days, the filing alleges, her direct supervisor - a regional sales director - began making pregnancy-based comments. The complaint attributes to him remarks including whether "being pregnant impact[s] the way your brain works," that her obstetric appointment was "not a priority," and "Why don't you just quit!!??" It also attributes to him, in the same period, "I do not care if something happens to your fetus."
The worker complained internally. The company investigated and, on March 24, 2025, issued the supervisor a written warning after finding his pregnancy-related comments inappropriate, the complaint says - a finding it alleges Abbott later confirmed in writing to the EEOC.
For an HR audience, the next moves are the crux of the case. Eleven days after the warning, the filing says, the company placed the worker on unpaid leave it described as "an alternative to" the accommodations she wanted. A manager told her "there are no job duties you can safely perform," according to the complaint - a claim the filing calls false, because the company's own later return-to-work plan set out a range of duties she could handle within her restrictions.
That plan, issued in July 2025, told her to "immediately contact [the supervisor] for guidance" if she was ever asked to do work that broke her medical restrictions - the same manager the company had disciplined, the complaint says. Her reporting line stayed the same.
About 34 weeks pregnant, she declined to return under those terms. The company then recorded her exit as a "voluntary resignation," the filing alleges, while at the same time processing a termination and ending her family's health coverage on July 14, 2025 - roughly a month before her due date. Weeks after she gave birth, the complaint says, Abbott's HR recoveries department asked her to repay $2,393.03, including her sign-on bonus, citing the same termination the company had denied making.
The suit brings claims under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which requires employers to reasonably accommodate known limitations tied to pregnancy and childbirth, along with Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Florida Civil Rights Act, and the Miami-Dade County Code. The worker is seeking back pay, front pay, compensatory and punitive damages, and a declaration that she owes nothing on the repayment demand.
For HR teams, the case is a study in what can happen after a complaint is substantiated. The plaintiff's theory turns on the decision to leave the accused manager in her reporting line and to route her medical-restriction concerns back through him, and on treating unpaid leave as a stand-in for accommodations she says she could have performed. Whether any of that broke the law is for the court to decide.
None of the allegations have been tested, and no court has ruled on any of the claims.
