Claudia Iniguez-Diarte filed suit against a former employer alleging she was fired for being pregnant. (Provided photo)
A Vancouver woman has filed a discrimination lawsuit against a Mexican restaurant chain, which she alleges fired her because she was pregnant.
Claudia Iniguez-Diarte filed the suit Monday in Clark County Superior Court against Casa Colima, which has a Vancouver location at 6700 N.E. 162nd Ave., in the Sifton neighborhood.
Iniguez-Diarte said she was fired in January 2022 from her position as an assistant manager for the restaurant, where she’d worked since 2019. She said she’d made it well known she was pregnant and had invited the manager and his wife to her gender reveal party. She said days after the manager had asked about her plans for maternity leave, the manager texted her that he was letting her go, according to the complaint.
In the text, the manager said she was being let go because “sales are not picking up.” But, Iniguez-Diarte said when she asked for a letter stating the reason for her termination, it stated she was fired for “interfering with back of the house kitchen operations causing unnecessary disruption,” court records state.
Efforts to reach restaurant management Tuesday morning were unsuccessful.
Iniguez-Diarte also alleges the manager said in an interview with a Washington Human Rights Commission investigator that she was fired for harassment. She said the restaurant management never told her they had any concerns about her behavior, and she was never disciplined.
The lawsuit alleges the restaurant violated the Healthy Starts Act requiring accommodations for pregnant women, Washington’s Law Against Discrimination pertaining to gender discrimination, the Washington Paid Family Leave Act requiring leave for pregnancy and public policy protecting against firing an employee for pregnancy.
Iniguez-Diarte is suing for unspecified damages and for lost wages, the complaint states.
Iniguez-Diarte’s attorney said in a news release that the company’s reasons for firing her were attempts at a cover-up.
“Unfortunately, we see this a lot,” attorney Colin McHugh said in the news release. “Once employers realize they are being investigated for discrimination, they try to make up new reasons for why someone was terminated. All this does is show that the original proffered reason was false and that they were really firing Claudia for being pregnant.”
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