Lawsuit Filing: Woman Was Fired Because Her Children Could Be Heard on Business Calls

Lawsuits are starting to pop up around the country regarding employee-employer relationships during the Covid-19 crisis.

Earlier this month, a California woman filed suit against her former employer, saying that she was fired because her young children were making noise during business calls while she was working from home because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The woman filed the lawsuit last month against Hub International, a global insurance brokerage firm. The lawsuit alleges gender discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination, saying her boss expected her to take business calls during the day and meet incredibly tight deadlines — all without a peep heard from her children.

We can expect to see more of these types of lawsuits when companies drop the ball and allow managers to discriminate against employees. The predicament reflected in this lawsuit reflects the challenges that many working mothers face as the coronavirus pandemic forces schools to close and halts many summer activities for children.

Unfortunately, here in Texas I am expecting to see an explosion of cases involving family responsibilities — which usually means discrimination against mothers.

In two-parent households, about 44 percent of women said they alone provided child care in their household in early April, compared with 14 percent of men, according to a study on gender differences during the coronavirus outbreak by the Dornsife Center For Economic and Social Research at the University of Southern California.

The suit is Drisana Wallace v. Hub International Insurance Services Inc. et al., case number 37-2020-00019040, in California Superior Court for San Diego County.