Dollar General has agreed to cough up $42,500 to settle a lawsuit claiming a manager at a Georgia store fired a staffer “immediately” after finding out she was pregnant, and citing “health reasons” in her separation notice.
In September 2020, Calleigh Rutledge was working as a sales associate at a Dollar General in Baldwin, Ga., when she told the store manager that she was pregnant, according to a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Georgia federal court last month.
“Immediately after learning of her pregnancy,” the manager said: “Since you are pregnant, you can no longer work here,” according to the EEOC, though Rutledge reportedly never requested maternity leave or suggested that she was unable to work during her employment.
Later that evening, the store manager called Rutledge to apologize for firing her, and said she would inquire about whether she could return to work for “light duty” at two hours per day the EEOC claimed in the court documents obtained by The Post.
The EEOC cited a text exchange between Rutledge and her manager, where the mother-to-be said she needed to work more than two hours per day in order to make enough money for her and her baby.
“Will that be safe? How many hrs are you thinking?” the manager replied, to which Rutledge said she wanted to keep her schedule the same throughout her pregnancy, the filing showed.
“Rutledge was never again placed on the work schedule,” according to the lawsuit, and just days after revealing her pregnancy, Rutledge received a separation notice stating her discharge was due to “health reasons.”
The EEOC shared that Dollar General agreed to settle the pregnancy discrimination lawsuit with $42,500 in a press release on Wednesday.
Of the sum, $29,750 will cover compensatory damages while $12,750 goes towards back pay damages.
It’s unclear if Rutledge sought to get her job back as a Dollar General cashier.
The federal agency also said Dollar General agreed to revise its anti-discrimination policies, provide annual training to its managers on Title VII — which protects employees from discrimination in the workplace — and allow the EEOC to monitor complaints of discrimination.
The EEOC declined to comment on pending litigation.
Representatives for Dollar General did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The Tennessee-based discount chain hasn’t been having a good year so far.
Year-to-date, Dollar General’s share price has tanked nearly 60%, to $101.83, and it’s been getting slammed by retail theft and waning consumer demand.
The company warned Wall Street in August that its profits may plunge as much as 34% this fiscal year — compared to its previous forecast for an 8% decline — as it cut its full-year outlook for the second time.
“Our revised guide is really a function of the slower transactions that we’re seeing, and higher expected shrink,” Dollar General CFO Kelly Dilts said on a call with analysts after the company reported quarterly earnings that fell short of Wall Street estimates on Aug. 31.
The reference to “shrink” — an industry term for stolen or damaged goods — follows a troubling trend cited by other major retailers who have blamed the scourge of organized retail theft for impacting their bottom line.