LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A woman has settled her lawsuit against an Irvine company in which she said she was wrongfully terminated from her marketing job for taking time off to deal with depression stemming from the death of her mother and from suffering multiple miscarriages.
Attorneys for Riza Rose Mercado filed court papers on Monday with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephen Pfahler notifying him of the accord with Wheel Pros LLC, but no terms were divulged. Mercado sued the company in March 2024, and her allegations included retaliation, pregnancy discrimination, as well as discrimination for taking leave, failure to prevent discrimination, harassment and retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Mercado, now 39, sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. In their court papers, Wheel Pros attorneys denied her allegations and cited multiple defenses, including violation of the statute of limitations and that any conduct undertaken by the company concerning the plaintiff was a “proper exercise of discretion and business judgment, undertaken for legitimate business reasons.”
According to her suit, Mercado was hired by a predecessor company in November 2016 and was kept on when Wheel Pros took over in July 2022. She was promoted to senior affiliate marketing manager a year later and her boss told her he wanted her to take over the influencer marketing programs, the suit stated.
“Mercado loved her job and planned to continue progressing her career with Wheel Pros until retirement,” the suit stated.
Mercado and her husband had a daughter, and in 2019 wanted to expand their family, but the first attempt ended in a miscarriage, and she took bereavement leave, the suit stated. Mercado would eventually take more leave time after her mother died in the Philippines and she had three more miscarriages, according to her suit.
While on her last leave, Mercado’s boss contacted her to let her know that one of her programs was being taken from her that she had worked on since 2021, the suit stated. Mercado began to feel anxious, but thought all would be well given her boss’ alleged assurances that her job was secure, the suit further stated.
However, in late November 2023, two months after her fourth miscarriage, Mercado’s boss told her that her position was being eliminated, leaving the plaintiff “shocked and speechless, choking back tears,” according to her complaint.
Her boss’ allegedly contradictory statements explaining her termination “only confused Mercado more, but it confirmed her suspicions that she was being terminated just because of her repeated pregnancies/miscarriages and requests for protected time off,” the suit stated.
Recent Comments