Pregnancy Discrimination Attorneys Santa Clara

Announcing a pregnancy should never change how your employer treats you, but too often it does. If you were demoted, sidelined, denied accommodations, or terminated during or after your pregnancy in Santa Clara, Miracle Mile Law Group can help you understand what happened and what you're owed. We have recovered over $75 million for California employees. Contact us today for a free, confidential consultation.

Pregnancy Discrimination Rarely Announces Itself

Almost no employer tells a pregnant employee directly that her pregnancy is the problem. Instead, the treatment shifts quietly. A project gets reassigned "to make things easier." A promotion conversation that was already in motion suddenly stalls. A manager who once praised your work starts documenting concerns that never came up before. None of it is labeled as pregnancy discrimination, but the timing tells its own story.

Under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), it is illegal to discriminate against an employee because of pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition. FEHA applies to employers with five or more employees, a far broader reach than the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act's 15-employee threshold. Many Santa Clara startups and smaller companies are covered without realizing it.

Your Leave Rights: PDL and CFRA Stack Together

This is the area of pregnancy law most people misunderstand, and getting it wrong can cost an employee weeks of leave they were actually entitled to.

Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL) provides up to four months, or 17.33 weeks, of job-protected leave for any employee disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition. PDL applies to employers with five or more employees, and there is no minimum length of service required. You could start a job today and be eligible for PDL tomorrow.

California Family Rights Act (CFRA) baby-bonding leave provides an additional 12 weeks of job-protected leave. CFRA applies to employers with five or more employees, and requires that you have worked at least 12 months and 1,250 hours in the prior 12 months.

These are separate and additive, not either-or. An eligible employee can take up to four months of PDL for pregnancy-related disability, then take up to 12 weeks of CFRA leave to bond with the baby afterward. We regularly hear from clients who were told, incorrectly, that their leave was exhausted after 12 weeks total. If your employer miscounted your leave, or your job changed while you were out, that is worth having reviewed.

Both PDL and CFRA leave are unpaid, but you may qualify for State Disability Insurance (SDI) during pregnancy-related disability and Paid Family Leave (PFL) benefits during bonding leave. Taking either does not affect your job protection.

Your Right to Reasonable Accommodations

Pregnancy qualifies as a temporary disability for accommodation purposes under California law, which means your employer must engage in a timely, good faith interactive process to identify workable accommodations, and provide them unless doing so creates an undue hardship, a high bar requiring significant difficulty or expense.

Reasonable accommodations may include:

• Modified work schedules or reduced hours
• More frequent breaks, including rest and bathroom breaks
• Seating, if your job normally requires standing
• Lifting restrictions or assistance with physical tasks
• Temporary transfer to a less physically demanding role
• Time off for prenatal appointments
• Remote work, where the role reasonably allows it

A critical point employers frequently get wrong: an employer cannot force you onto leave when another reasonable accommodation would let you keep working. Being pushed to "just start your leave early" when you asked for a modified schedule instead is not a lawful accommodation. It is a way of cutting your earning capacity short under the guise of flexibility.

How We've Seen Pregnancy Discrimination Show Up in Santa Clara Workplaces

Santa Clara's tech-driven economy adds its own layer to how pregnancy discrimination plays out:

• Performance reviews timed around leave. An employee heads into parental leave with strong reviews and returns to find a sudden "growth areas" narrative that never existed before, often coinciding with the next promotion or stock refresh cycle.
• Missed equity and promotion cycles. When performance and promotion decisions happen on a fixed quarterly or annual schedule, an employee out on leave during that window can be quietly skipped, sometimes with the explanation that they "weren't around to be considered."
• Role changes disguised as reorganization. A team gets restructured while an employee is on leave, and she returns to a different role, a different manager, or reduced responsibilities, described as a routine business decision.
• Physical accommodation needs in lab, biotech, and manufacturing roles. Employees in biotech, hardware, or manufacturing settings may need accommodations around chemical exposure, standing, or lifting that go unaddressed or get met with resistance.
• Fear of speaking up while on a visa. Pregnant employees sponsored on a work visa often hesitate to request accommodations or push back on mistreatment, worried that doing so could jeopardize their immigration status. That fear does not reduce your legal protections, and an employer who counts on it is compounding the problem.

Retaliation Is Its Own Claim

If you requested an accommodation, took PDL or CFRA leave, or complained about how you were treated, and then faced consequences for it, that retaliation is a separate violation from the underlying discrimination. Adverse actions can include termination, demotion, reduced hours, a sudden negative review, or exclusion from projects and meetings you were previously part of.

You do not have to be right about the underlying issue to be protected. You only need a reasonable, good faith belief that what happened was unlawful. Retaliation claims are often the strongest part of a case because the timeline is objective: emails have dates, performance reviews have dates, and when negative treatment follows closely behind protected activity, that sequence is difficult for an employer to explain away.

Our Track Record in Pregnancy Discrimination Cases

We have represented pregnant employees at every stage of this experience, from denied accommodations to outright termination, and our results reflect how often employers underestimate these cases:

• Terminated at seven months pregnant under the pretense of the pandemic. Our firm first-chaired a contentious two-and-a-half-week trial for a legal assistant fired while seven months pregnant. The jury returned a verdict, and the court subsequently awarded over $900,000 in attorney's fees and $95,000 in costs, bringing the total judgment to more than $1.1 million.
• Fired after giving notice of her pregnancy. A part-time sales assistant was terminated shortly after disclosing her pregnancy to her employer. We secured her a $1,100,000 settlement.
• Terminated after disclosure, before any accommodation request was even addressed. We secured a $510,000 settlement for a client fired after disclosing her pregnancy.
• Terminated upon returning from pregnancy leave. We represented an employee whose job was gone by the time she returned from leave, resulting in a $206,000 settlement.
• Fired shortly after disclosure, resolved before litigation escalated. We represented an employee terminated shortly after telling her employer she was pregnant, securing a $127,500 settlement.

Across these cases, a consistent pattern emerges: employers frequently assume that framing a termination around "performance" or "restructuring" will hold up, even when the timing points directly back to a pregnancy disclosure or leave request. Our results say otherwise.

Important Deadlines

What You May Be Able to Recover

Because FEHA imposes no cap on damages, recovery in a pregnancy discrimination case can be substantial. Depending on the facts, it may include:

• Lost wages and benefits, both past and future
• Emotional distress damages
• Punitive damages where the employer's conduct was particularly egregious
• Attorney's fees and costs
• Reinstatement or other injunctive relief

Evidence That Strengthens a Pregnancy Discrimination Case

These cases turn heavily on timing and documentation. If you are still employed or recently separated, preserving the following matters:

• The date you told your employer you were pregnant, and who you told
• Performance reviews from before and after your announcement
• Any written accommodation request and the response you received
• Doctor's notes, leave paperwork, and PDL or CFRA correspondence
• Emails, texts, and messages, especially anything praising your work before the announcement
• Your termination letter, separation agreement, or stated reason for the firing
• Names of coworkers who witnessed relevant events or were treated differently
• A dated timeline written while your memory is fresh

Preserve only what relates to you and your own work. Do not take confidential client data or trade secrets, as that creates a separate legal problem that can undermine an otherwise strong case. And do not sign a severance agreement before an attorney reviews it, since signing often means giving up the exact rights you would need to bring a claim.

Speak With a Santa Clara Pregnancy Discrimination Attorney

You do not need to be certain you have a case before reaching out. Most people are not, because employers rarely make the reason obvious. What matters is that the treatment changed after you disclosed your pregnancy, and you deserve a straight answer from an attorney who handles these cases every day.

Miracle Mile Law Group represents employees exclusively. We have recovered over $75 million for mistreated workers across California, including a $1.1 million verdict and fee award for a legal assistant fired at seven months pregnant, and a $1.1 million settlement for a sales assistant terminated after giving notice of her pregnancy. Consultations are free and confidential, and we work on contingency, meaning there is no fee unless we recover for you.

If you experienced pregnancy discrimination at a Santa Clara workplace, contact Miracle Mile Law Group for a free, confidential case evaluation.