Jury Awards $550,000 to DC Chipotle Worker Who Was Fired After Getting Pregnant

WASHINGTON, DC -- Popular Mexican restaurant chain Chipotle will have to pay up to an employee who was fired from a D.C. restaurant after she became pregnant.

A jury awarded Doris Garcia Hernandez $550,000 in compensatory and punitive damages after determining that she was indeed fired for being pregnant, according to a Washington Business Journal report.

Garcia became pregnant back in 2011 while working at the Chipotle at 1837 M St. NW, and when she told her manager, the suit claims that he started restricting her water and bathroom breaks, and eventually fired her when she went to a pre-natal doctor's appointment without his approval.

The suit even claims that the manager, who was only identified as David, fired her in front of other employees in the main part of the restaurant.

"Prior to learning of Ms. Garcia's pregnancy, David did not have any problems with Ms. Garcia taking bathroom breaks," the suit states. "However, upon learning of her pregnancy, David told Ms. Garcia that she had to announce to every employee in the store when she was going to the bathroom and that David would have to approve her bathroom breaks so that he could cover her work position for her. David did not impose these requirements on non-pregnant employees."

The suit alleges that when Garcia told David that she urgently needed to use the restroom, David would delay responding to her for five minutes or more.

"Upon her return from the bathroom, David would often yell at Ms. Garcia in front of customers and the other employees and ask her why she had taken such a long time in the bathroom, despite her use of the bathroom for a similar amount of time as non-pregnant employees," the suit continues. "David did not yell at non-pregnant employees about bathroom use and David did not question non-pregnant employees about their use of the bathroom. Ms. Garcia became upset and nervous by David's differential treatment."

The differential treatment only got worse from there, the suit claims, as David also restricted her access to drinking water, asked her to start working longer shifts and started ignoring her requests to move shifts so she could attend doctor's appointments.

In January 2012, David told her not to go to a doctor's appointment she had scheduled, but Garcia went anyway, the suit states.

"On the morning of January 13, 2012, Ms. Garcia arrived for work at 9:00 a.m.," it reads. "When she attempted to punch in, David told her not to punch in and directed her to the public lobby of the restaurant where he proceeded to fire her in front of the other employees."

Image via @ChipotleTweets Twitter account