MIAMI – A Florida woman alleges her employer harassed her during her pregnancy, refused to make medically-necessary accommodations, and ultimately led to her unemployment.
Plaintiff Ingrid Egocheaga filed her lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division.
The named defendants are Abbott Laboratories Inc. and St. Jude Medical SC Inc.
“Defendants acted with malice or with reckless indifference to Plaintiff’s federally and state protected rights, including by requiring her to report through a supervisor they had disciplined for pregnancy harassment and by stripping her pay rather than accommodating her,” her 36-page filing states.
Egocheaga alleges Abbott and St. Jude violated the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, Civil Rights Act, Pregnancy Discrimination Act, Florida Civil Rights Act, and Americans with Disabilities Act.
She contends the hostile work environment created by her direct supervisor and the retaliation that followed her complaints culminated in her constructive discharge at 34 weeks pregnant, leaving her and her family without health insurance mere weeks before her due date.
Constructive discharge, in legal terms, refers to an employee's resignation being treated as if they were fired, even though they technically quit. This happens when an employer creates working conditions so intolerable that a reasonable person would feel compelled to resign.
Egocheaga alleges that “within days” of learning she was pregnant, supervisor Jaime Vicent subjected her to “explicit pregnancy-based abuse,” telling her things like her obstetric appointment was “not a priority.”
“Defendants’ own Employee Relations function investigated Plaintiff’s complaint and, as Abbott has admitted in writing to the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (‘EEOC’), issued Vicent a formal Written Warning on March 24, 2025 after finding his pregnancy-related comments inappropriate,” the complaint states.
Days later, rather than provide the accommodations Egocheaga had requested and her physicians had documented, Egocheaga alleges the defendants stripped her of her pay and placed her on an unpaid, company-initiated leave of absence expressly framed as “an alternative to” those accommodations.
“When Defendants finally issued a return-to-work plan three months later, they conditioned Plaintiff’s return on reporting through the very supervisor they had disciplined for pregnancy harassment, instructing her that if she were ever asked to perform work violating her medical restrictions she should ‘immediately contact Jaime Vicent for guidance,’” the filing states.
Egocheaga contends that when she declined, at 34 weeks pregnant, to submit to that arrangement without her documented accommodations in place, the defendants declared her employment ended by “voluntary resignation.”
However, she alleges they simultaneously processed her separation as a termination, sent her offboarding instructions, and cut off her family’s health coverage effective July 14, 2025, just one month before her Aug. 14, 2025 due date.
Then, weeks after Egocheaga gave birth – after her counsel already sent demand letters – Abbott’s Human Resources department allegedly demanded she repay more than $2,300, including a sign-on bonus, citing her termination.
Egocheaga had been hired in August 2024 as a clinical specialist supporting the defendants’ cardiac rhythm management business in a South Florida territory, at an annual salary of $99,000.
The offer letter provided for a $2,500 sign-on bonus, repayable if she did not complete 12 months of continuous active service.
Egocheaga began work on Sept. 3, 2024. Her duties included supporting cardiac device procedures and patient follow-up in hospital operating rooms, electrophysiology labs and clinics.
She learned in December 2024 that she was pregnant with a due date of Aug. 21, 2025. She disclosed her pregnancy to her supervisor Jan. 7, 2025.
“A reasonable person in Plaintiff’s position, in the final weeks of a higher-risk pregnancy, with her documented accommodations unresolved and her only prescribed channel for protecting her medical restrictions running through the supervisor Defendants had disciplined for pregnancy harassment, would have found the working conditions imposed by Defendants intolerable,” Egocheaga’s complaint states.
She contends, as a result of the defendants’ actions, she has suffered and continues to suffer lost wages of about $8,250 per month since April 2025; lost health, dental, and vision benefits; and lost retirement contributions.
She argues she also has suffered emotional distress, mental anguish, anxiety, humiliation, loss of dignity, physical manifestations of distress, and loss of enjoyment of life.
She seeks economic damages including back pay and front pay, statutory damages, compensatory damages, emotional distress damages, punitive damages, interest and attorney fees.
Derek Smith Law Group PLLC in Miami is representing Egocheaga in the action.
