A former employee of a Westwood fertility clinic sued the company Monday, alleging she was wrongfully terminated in 2023 because she is Black and took medical leave for depression after two miscarriages.
Porscha Parker’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit allegations against the Pacific Fertility Center include disability and race discrimination, retaliation, violation of pregnancy disability leave law and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
A PFC representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
PFC has offered in vitro fertilization since 1991 and operates two clinics in Los Angeles County. Parker was hired in December 2019 as an andrology technician at the Wilshire Boulevard clinic. She processed sperm samples for IVF procedures and was the lab’s only Black employee, the suit states.
After Parker, 38, told the lab director in 2021 that she suffered from severe migraine headaches, she was given permission to not work on days she experienced the pain, the suit states. Parker suffered her first miscarriage in April 2023 and was given an approved medical leave by the human resources director of operation, the suit states.
However, in late May 2023 the human resources director issued Parker a final write-up for excessive absenteeism and denied knowing about the plaintiff’s migraines, according to the suit. Parker wrote an email in protest of the write-up and it was revised that same day, the suit states.
But even though Parker provided medical documentation for her time off, the human resources director “grew even more frustrated with plaintiff and increasingly gave her the cold shoulder,” according to the complaint. Meanwhile, another lab director took over for the previous person and promised to give Parker embryologist training, the plaintiff alleges.
Last October, Parker began having cramping and bleeding, suffered another miscarriage and was placed on another medical leave for a month due to depression that was extended until January of this year after the plaintiff returned to work and found that her mental state impacted her work, the suit states.
Last December, while still on leave, the human resources director set up a virtual meeting with Parker and fired the plaintiff and said the plaintiff’s position was eliminated, the suit alleges. When Parker reminded the lab director of his agreement to train the plaintiff to become an embryologist, he replied, “Well, you haven’t been around. I don’t know what’s going on with you,” according to the suit.
Instead, the embryologist position Parker was promised was given to a less qualified white employee, according to the suit, which alleges the plaintiff lost her job as a “direct result of race discrimination, disability discrimination and unlawful retaliation” for taking medical leave.
Parker has suffered financial losses and emotional distress since losing her job, the suit alleges.