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 sex-discrimination lawsuit brought by a schoolteacher at an elementary school associated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana will proceed to trial after United States District Court Judge Robert L. Miller, Jr. denied the diocese’s motion for summary judgment.
The teacher, Emily Herx, sued the diocese in 2012 after she was terminated from her teaching position at St. Vincent de Paul School. Herx’s firing came after diocese officials discovered Herx underwent a procedure for in vitro fertilization. In-vitro fertilization is a process in which a man’s sperm and a woman’s egg are joined outside the womb, normally in a petri dish. After the egg and sperm are successfully joined, the resulting embryo is placed into the woman’s womb.
Herx underwent in-vitro fertilization because she suffers from infertility. She argued in her lawsuit that infertility is a protected disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and that her termination violated both the ADA and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Roman Catholic Church disapproves of in-vitro fertilization because additional embryos are created to increase the odds of a successful pregnancy. When an embryo is successfully placed in a mother’s womb, the additional embryos are destroyed. The Church believes that human life begins at the moment of conception, or when the sperm and egg join, so the destruction of embryos constitutes the willful destruction of human life.