Charlotte Injury Lawyers Blog
Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can my employer fire me because I filed a workers’ compensation claim?”
A mother-of-two who was ordered to breastfeed in a supply closet at work has settled a sex harassment lawsuit she brought against her employer.
The woman—Monica Van De Pitte—said a picture of a cow was taped to the door of the supply room at the Lake Oswego, Oregon-based Velocitel, a wireless network company. The picture was posted after coworkers “mooed” at Van De Pitte and others who were breastfeeding at work, and was meant to direct her and other mothers where to go to breastfeed at the office.
A coworker told Van De Pitte that others in the office thought breastfeeding was “gross.”
Van De Pitte said she explained to her bosses when she was hired that she would need a private place to breastfeed her young son, but that the “mooing” and “colleagues openly bragg[ing] about their sex lives” affected her so much that she struggled to produce enough milk to feed her son once she was alone in the room.
Van De Pitte ultimately resigned from her position in 2013 and filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the company.