Montrose County fined for pregnancy discrimination
PUBLISHED: July 25, 2015 at 9:48 a.m. | UPDATED: April 15, 2019 at 4:41 a.m.
MONTROSE, Colo. (AP) — A jury has found Montrose County guilty of discriminating against a pregnant woman.
The former employee was fired after seeking to work part-time during her pregnancy.
The (Grand Junction) Daily Sentinel reports (http://bit.ly/1VFOy9A ) that Stephanie Barnett won an award of $306,400 mostly in backpay damages.
Barnett was the former director of the county's internal services division. She was fired in 2013 after talking with a manager about a transition to working part-time during her pregnancy.
Nine days after the meeting, Barnett was fired.
Hours after she was fired, Barnett started to experience abdominal pain and she miscarried her baby less than week later.
The county said that the pregnancy was not why Barnett was fired, though jurors disagreed.
Information from: The Daily Sentinel, http://www.gjsentinel.com