EEOC Sues BestBet Jacksonville Under Pregnant Worker Fairness Act

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – BestBet Jacksonville, Inc., the largest poker room in Florida, violated federal law when it failed to offer reasonable accommodations to a class of pregnant employees and forced them to quit, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit announced today.

According to the suit, BestBet maintained a strict policy requiring employees to resign if they missed two weeks or more of work and do not otherwise qualify for leave under the Family Medical Leave Act. When one woman with a high-risk pregnancy requested to miss six shifts over a two-and-a-half-week period in January 2025 on the advice of her doctor, BestBet forced her to quit. BestBet forced another employee to leave the company in February 2025 after she requested leave to have her baby, the lawsuit said.

“Federal law makes it unlawful for employers to refuse to make a reasonable accommodation for the known limitations of a pregnant worker, absent undue hardship,” said Kristen Foslid, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Miami District Office. “Employers must engage in an interactive dialogue with employees to find suitable accommodations, rather than simply denying the requests outright.”

This alleged conduct violated the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which requires employers to reasonably accommodate employees’ and applicants’ known limitations related to pregnancy and childbirth, absent undue hardship, including accommodations requiring modification of the employer’s application of its policies limiting use of leave. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. BestBet Jacksonville, Inc., Case No. 3:26-cv-00704) in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida after first trying to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.

EEOC’s Miami District Director Evangeline Hawthorne said, “In this case, multiple women requested and were denied reasonable accommodations. The EEOC will not hesitate to litigate cases where employers blatantly ignore federal law.”

For more information about the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-pregnant-workers-fairness-act. For more information on pregnancy discrimination, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/pregnancy-discrimination.

The EEOC’s Miami District Office has jurisdiction over Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s employment antidiscrimination effort. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov.