She only asked to skip one task — climbing 40 feet while carrying a sledgehammer
A lawsuit filed against Land O'Lakes alleges the company fired a pregnant employee after reversing her approved FMLA leave.
Jessica Clemmer, a Lead Operator at the company's Portland, Oregon facility, says she was terminated in June 2025 after disclosing her pregnancy and asking for a workplace accommodation. The case, filed on March 27 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon (Clemmer v. Land O'Lakes, Inc., Case No. 3:26-cv-00602), raises 17 claims ranging from sex and pregnancy discrimination to FMLA interference and wrongful discharge. No determination has been made on any of the claims.
Clemmer joined the company in November 2021 and was promoted to Lead Operator about seven months later. After an ultrasound in March 2025 confirmed her pregnancy, her medical provider recommended she be excused from one task: climbing roughly 40 feet up to a catwalk while carrying a sledgehammer to free stuck feed from the tops of silos. The filing notes the company had previously excused her from the same task and allowed her light duty when she sustained a back injury in 2023.
When Clemmer brought the request to the plant manager, identified as J.P., the response was not what she expected. According to the filing, J.P. told her that if she could not perform any part of her job, she would need to go on leave for the duration of her pregnancy. "Jessica, we've been through this before. We do not do light duty," J.P. allegedly said.
Clemmer then applied for and received intermittent FMLA leave through the company's third-party administrator, Lincoln Financial, to cover absences tied to pregnancy-related nausea. On May 16, 2025, she called out from her scheduled shift due to severe symptoms. Later that evening, feeling somewhat better, she went with her husband to a local bar — where she ran into her supervisor, K.Y.
What followed, according to the filing, is where the case takes a turn HR teams should pay close attention to.
The company allegedly contacted Lincoln Financial and directed it to remove that date from Clemmer's approved absences — the reason being that she had been "seen in public." That reversal added to her attendance points under the company's points-based system, triggering a second final written warning and, ultimately, her termination on June 4, 2025. The filing also alleges K.Y. had been visiting places he knew Clemmer's husband frequented to check whether she was using her leave appropriately.
For HR professionals, the case is a real-time illustration of how attendance systems, leave administration, and accommodation decisions can intersect in ways that create serious legal exposure. Reversing a previously approved absence based on an employee being seen outside the home, denying an accommodation the organization had granted before, and allowing supervisors to informally monitor employees on protected leave — each of those decisions, if proven, represents a potential compliance breakdown.
The case also serves as a reminder that points-based attendance policies, while common, require careful handling when absences may be protected under federal or state leave laws.
Land O'Lakes has not yet responded to the lawsuit.
