The employer had a paper trail - and a backlog that reshaped her job while she was on leave
A New York appeals court rejected a pregnancy discrimination case from a worker fired after she would not commit to a maternity return date.
The Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed the dismissal of a former employee's discrimination and retaliation claims against the New York County Lawyers Association on July 29, 2026.
The case turned on a familiar HR problem: what to do when someone on leave will not commit to coming back.
According to the decision, the employee took pregnancy-related leave in April 2016. While she was out, the association changed her role from full time to part time. In August 2016, it repeatedly asked when she planned to return. She did not give an exact date. On August 9, 2016, the association terminated her employment, effective September 8, 2016, at the end of her leave.
Nearly three years later, on August 7, 2019, she sued. She alleged discrimination and retaliation under two laws New York HR teams know well: the state Human Rights Law and the New York City Human Rights Law. The city law is the tougher of the two for employers. Under it, discrimination must "play no role" in an employment decision - a lower bar for workers to clear.
The association asked the court to end the case before trial, a step called summary judgment. In July 2024, the Supreme Court in Kings County agreed and dismissed the complaint. The employee appealed.
The Second Department affirmed on every claim. It found the association had given a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the firing: the employee's repeated failure to commit to a return date. It accepted a separate reason for moving her to part time - the association said it had cleared a "134-case backlog" in her department.
Once the employer offered those reasons, the burden shifted. The employee had to show they were a cover for bias, what courts call "pretext." The court said she did not produce enough evidence to send the question to a jury, even under the city's easier standard.
One argument failed for a different reason. The court said it was "improperly raised for the first time on appeal," meaning she had not made it earlier, so the judges would not weigh it.
For HR, the outcome shows how much a clean, consistent record can matter. The employer's documented reason - and its steady record of asking about a return date - carried the case. It is a reminder that how leave and return-to-work conversations are handled and documented can decide these disputes.
