She’d already passed the performance plan they used to justify it
Nike worker alleges she was fired on her first day back from medical leave.
The complaint, filed on October 2, 2026, in the US District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, alleges that Nike Retail Services fired a distribution center manager the same day she returned from nearly three months of approved FMLA leave.
The timing was not the only thing that stood out.
According to the filing, the worker had spent the months before her leave raising complaints about discrimination - first about race and sex, then about how her peers treated her compared to male colleagues. She alleges Nike terminated her anyway, using the same performance concerns she had already addressed and resolved.
The worker started at Nike's Memphis distribution facility in August 2024 and held the role of DC Manager at an annual salary of $87,165, according to the complaint.
Things shifted in late December 2024. The complaint alleges the worker reported to Nike that her manager had discriminated against her based on race and sex. What followed, according to the filing, was an attempt to place her on a performance action plan - which the worker challenged as retaliation for her complaint.
Nike then moved the worker to a different department, the complaint states. Her new supervisor allegedly told her she would still need to go through a performance plan, despite never having worked with her. On April 9, 2025, according to the filing, a 90-day performance action plan was issued citing "teamwork and communication, establishing trust with peers and team members, performance management, and modeling the behaviors of a leader."
The worker completed that plan successfully.
Before going on leave, the complaint alleges, the worker raised concerns with her supervisor about being excluded from meetings and mandatory duties, and about having her employees directed without her input. She was told to address the concerns with her peers directly.
Then came what the filing describes as a misrepresented report. After a July 25, 2025 conversation about a garden volunteer project, an operations manager allegedly reported the exchange to Nike's HR department - referred to in the complaint as People Solutions. The complaint states that report "misrepresented Plaintiff's words and intentions" and that the worker was not told about it for almost two months.
On September 12, 2025 - her last working day before leave - the worker submitted a written response to that report. Four days later, she filed a formal written complaint with People Solutions alleging sex discrimination. According to the filing, she stated she was the only woman leader in her department and described being treated differently from male peers in similar situations. She cited specific incidents: being excluded from a mandatory leadership walk on September 10, 2025, a coworker walking away from her mid-sentence in front of the team that same day, and a work ticket she had requested being canceled without her input on September 12.
Also on September 12, the complaint alleges her supervisor asked whether she wanted to be removed from the leadership group chats during her leave. The worker said no - she planned to return. By September 16, she had been removed from three of them, according to the filing. Other managers who had gone on leave had not been removed.
The worker began approved FMLA leave on September 17, 2025. Nike's third-party leave administrator, Sedgwick, approved the leave through December 9, 2025.
She returned to work on December 10 - the first workday after her leave ended.
That same day, according to the complaint, her supervisor terminated her employment. The stated reasons were "communication and collaboration issues with the team, leadership presence and engagement, and overall professional conduct."
The complaint draws a pointed connection: those reasons repeated the concerns from the April 2025 performance plan that the worker had already completed successfully. They also concerned the very team whose conduct the worker had just reported to HR.
The filing alleges three counts: retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, retaliation under the Tennessee Human Rights Act, and retaliation and interference under the FMLA. The complaint states the worker filed an EEOC charge alleging retaliation on February 8, 2026, and received a Notice of Right to Sue on July 14, 2026. The worker is seeking back pay, lost benefits, reinstatement or front pay, compensatory and punitive damages, and liquidated damages under the FMLA.
For HR teams, the sequence here reads like a textbook in what not to do with termination timing - the complaint builds its case almost entirely on the proximity between protected activity and the adverse action, and on recycling performance concerns the employer's own process had already resolved.
None of the allegations in the complaint have not been tested, and no court has made any findings on the claims.
