You can be fired while on maternity leave, but only for reasons that have nothing to do with your pregnancy, your leave, or your request for accommodations. A company-wide layoff that sweeps up your position is generally lawful; a firing timed to your leave and dressed up as something else is not. The question in any specific case is whether you would have lost the job if you had never been pregnant.
When a Firing During Maternity Leave Is Illegal
Several federal laws box in what an employer can do to a pregnant employee or one on leave. Together they make it unlawful to fire you because of pregnancy, because you took protected leave, or because you asked for an accommodation.
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, an amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, applies to employers with 15 or more employees and forbids discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.1U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 19782U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Pregnancy Discrimination and Pregnancy-Related Disability Discrimination There is no minimum length-of-service requirement under the PDA, so it protects you from your first day on the job.
The Family and Medical Leave Act layers on job protection. If you’re eligible, your employer must give you up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave and, when you return, restore you to your original position or an equivalent one with the same pay, benefits, and working conditions.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2614 – Employment and Benefits Protection Equivalent is a high bar. A lower title, a pay cut, a worse schedule, or diminished responsibilities does not qualify. FMLA covers public agencies, schools, and private companies with at least 50 employees, and to qualify you must have worked there at least 12 months and logged 1,250 hours in the year before leave.4eCFR. 29 CFR 825.105
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which took effect in June 2023, requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnancy or childbirth-related limitations, unless doing so would cause the business significant difficulty or expense.5U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Should Know About the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act Firing someone for requesting an accommodation is unlawful retaliation.
In practice, most illegal firings during maternity leave fall into one of three patterns:
The timing and comments give it away. A termination shortly after you announce a pregnancy, paired with remarks from a manager about the disruption your leave will cause, is powerful evidence of discrimination. Courts weigh the sequence of events, comments from decision-makers, and how similarly situated employees were treated.
Your job disappears while you’re out. If your employer fills your role with a permanent hire during your leave and then tells you the position no longer exists, that is not a legitimate restructuring. It is replacing you for taking leave.
The stated reason falls apart. An employer sometimes offers a facially neutral explanation that doesn’t survive scrutiny. If the company says your position was cut for budget reasons but posts an identical job under a new title, the stated reason is a pretext.
When a Firing During Maternity Leave Is Legal
Being on leave doesn’t make you unfireable. The employer has to show you would have lost the job regardless of your pregnancy.
Genuine layoffs. If your entire department is eliminated as part of a broader restructuring, your inclusion is permissible when the decision rests on neutral criteria like seniority, role function, or department-level cuts. Two hundred people cut across six departments looks very different from a single role eliminated the week after leave begins.
Pre-existing performance problems. Poor performance can support a termination, but the paper trail matters. Written warnings, negative reviews, and improvement plans dated before your pregnancy carry weight. An employer that never flagged a problem until you asked for leave has a credibility problem that is hard to overcome.
Misconduct discovered during leave. If your employer discovers you falsified records or violated another firm policy, that can be a valid ground for firing, provided the violation is independently verifiable and not manufactured after the fact.
One narrow FMLA carve-out is worth knowing about, though it rarely applies. If you are a salaried employee among the highest-paid 10 percent at your worksite, your employer can deny job restoration if bringing you back would cause substantial and grievous economic injury. Even then, the employer must give you notice at the time it makes that determination.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2614 – Employment and Benefits Protection The exception affects reinstatement, not the right to sue for discrimination.
What Happens to Your Health Insurance
Losing your job during or right after maternity leave creates a health coverage gap at a bad time. Under COBRA, you can continue your employer-sponsored group health plan for up to 18 months after termination, and you have 60 days from the date coverage ends to elect it.6U.S. Department of Labor. COBRA Continuation Coverage
Cost is the catch. You pay the full premium plus a 2 percent administrative fee, up to 102 percent of the plan’s total cost.7U.S. Department of Labor. FAQs on COBRA Continuation Health Coverage for Employers and Advisers For many families that is well over $1,000 a month. If COBRA is unaffordable, losing your job qualifies you for a special enrollment period on the Health Insurance Marketplace, where you may find subsidized coverage depending on income.
If You’re Offered Severance, Read Before You Sign
A severance offer will almost certainly ask you to give up your right to sue. These waivers are not automatically enforceable. For a waiver of pregnancy discrimination claims, courts look at whether you signed knowingly and voluntarily: whether the language was clear, whether you had enough time to consider it, whether you were encouraged or discouraged from consulting a lawyer, and whether you received something of value beyond what you were already owed.8U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Q&A – Understanding Waivers of Discrimination Claims in Employee Severance Agreements
A few rules are absolute. No severance agreement can waive your right to file a charge with the EEOC or to participate in an EEOC investigation.8U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Q&A – Understanding Waivers of Discrimination Claims in Employee Severance Agreements Any clause that tries to block that is unenforceable. If you are 40 or older, you must be given at least 21 days to review the offer (45 days in a group layoff) and seven days to revoke after signing.
Never sign the same day you receive it. A few hundred dollars in legal fees to have an employment attorney read the agreement can prevent you from unknowingly waiving a claim worth far more.
Evidence to Gather Right Away
If you suspect your firing was unlawful, start collecting proof immediately. Memories fade, emails vanish, and some employers scrub records.
- The termination notice or email stating why you were let go. The employer’s stated reason is the first thing an investigator will test.
- Every performance review you received, especially the positive ones. Strong reviews undermine any later claim that your work was subpar.
- The employee handbook. Any deviation from the company’s own policies on leave, discipline, or termination is a red flag.
- Every email, text, and message with your supervisor or HR about your pregnancy, leave request, or accommodations.
- Your own written notes on any relevant verbal conversation, with the date, who was there, and what was said. Do this while details are fresh.
- Anything you know about coworkers in similar roles who were treated differently: kept during a layoff, not written up for the same issues, promoted while you were out. Comparator evidence is among the strongest proof of discrimination.
How to Challenge the Firing
Federal claims for pregnancy discrimination run through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before you can file a lawsuit. Skip this step and a court will dismiss your case.
Filing an EEOC Charge
You can file through the EEOC’s online Public Portal or in person at any field office. Staff conduct an intake interview and prepare a formal charge for your signature.9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. How to File a Charge of Employment Discrimination
The deadline is tight. You generally have 180 calendar days from the discriminatory act to file, or 300 days if your state has its own anti-discrimination agency.10U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge Missing this window can permanently bar your claim.
After the EEOC investigates, or decides not to, it issues a Notice of Right to Sue. Once you get it, you have exactly 90 days to file in federal court.11U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing a Lawsuit If you don’t want to wait, you can request the notice yourself once 180 days have passed since your initial filing.
FMLA Claims Take a Different Route
If the claim is that your employer interfered with your FMLA rights, for example by denying leave or refusing to reinstate you, you can file a private lawsuit directly without going through the EEOC. The statute of limitations is two years from the violation, or three years if the violation was willful.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 2617 – Enforcement Many wrongful terminations during maternity leave involve both a discrimination claim and an FMLA claim, so both tracks often run at once.
What You Can Recover
A successful case typically yields back pay covering wages and benefits lost from the firing to judgment, reinstatement to your former position, and compensatory damages for emotional distress. Punitive damages are available against private employers who acted with malice or reckless disregard for your rights.
Federal law caps the combined compensatory and punitive damages by employer size:
- 15 to 100 employees: $50,000
- 101 to 200 employees: $100,000
- 201 to 500 employees: $200,000
- More than 500 employees: $300,000
Back pay sits outside these caps.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1981a – Damages in Cases of Intentional Discrimination in Employment A court can also order the employer to pay your attorney’s fees if you prevail.
State Law May Give You More
Federal law is the floor. Roughly 15 states and the District of Columbia have paid family leave programs, with several more scheduled to start paying benefits in 2026. Many states also have anti-discrimination laws that reach smaller employers than federal law does or provide longer leave. A termination that squeaks past federal law can still violate state protections, so check with your state labor department or a local employment attorney about what applies where you live.