Lactnetters this was in the spokane paper today-Karen Querna
Woman loses breast-feeding lawsuit
> Spokane jury rules she was not a victim of sexual discrimination in
> her dismissal
> Tom Sowa - The Spokesman-Review
> Spokane _ A Spokane jury took just 60 minutes to rule against a woman
> who sued her former employer over not being able to breast-feed her
> child during work breaks.
> After a weeklong trial in Spokane County Superior Court, the
> seven-woman, five-man jury ruled that 36-year-old Donna Cok was not
> the victim of sexual discrimination or wrongful termination.
> Disappointed, Cok sat outside a Spokane County courtroom and said,
> ``Justice wasn't served. That's all I feel like saying.''
> Cok had been a respiratory therapist employed by Advanced Lifeline
> Services, a Kentucky company that operated a care unit at a South Hill
> nursing center.
> After giving birth to her third child, Cok returned to work on Aug. 4,
> 1996. She was employed by ALS to care for elderly patients and
> residents at the Southcrest Subacute and Specialty Care Center.
> Within 90 minutes of starting a 12-hour night shift, her husband
> brought their crying 8-week-old infant to the center to be breast-fed.
> The next day, she was told by her supervisor she would not be able to
> continue breast-feeding the child unless it occurred only during her
> 30-minute lunch or 10-minute breaks.
> Cok said she wanted more flexibility to breast-feed the infant, who,
> she added, had a dislike for breast-pumped milk from a bottle.
> Two months later, Cok lost her job. At the time, she was the primary
> breadwinner in her family.
> In 1997, Cok and her husband, Brad, moved the family to Plymouth,
> Ohio, where he gained employment working for a railroad.
> That same year, Cok sued ALS, saying the company had discriminated
> against her on the basis of her gender. She also claimed she was
> discharged from the job for the same reason.
> During the trial, her attorney Daniel Huntington did not set an exact
> dollar request for damages. He said Cok deserved about $69,000 in lost
> wages and an unspecified amount for pain and suffering.
> But the jury quickly found in favor of Advanced Lifeline Services,
> saying Cok had failed to prove that discrimination had occurred.
> ``What we did conclude was that both sides were guilty of very poor
> communication. This should have been resolved way before a lawsuit was
> settled,'' said one juror who didn't want to be identified.
> The decision was not unanimous, however. In the matter of wrongful
> termination, two of the 12 jurors voted on the side of Cok.
> Attorney Steven Pence, representing ALS, said he felt grateful jurors
> made a quick ruling in the company's favor.
> ``I must add ALS doesn't see this as a total victory. Part of my job
> is to make sure we don't get into situations like this.
> ``And we'll try to avoid it happening again,'' Pence said.
> In his closing arguments, Spence reminded the jurors that Cok wrote a
> letter to her supervisor that amounted to a list of workplace demands.
> ``This isn't a case about breast feeding,'' he told jurors. ``This is
> a case about a company protecting the health and care needs of its
> patients.''
> Cok's story had been featured on two national TV shows. She appeared
> on the Leeza Gibbons Show in 1997. Earlier this year, NBC's Dateline
> featured her lawsuit in a segment of its news magazine.
>
>
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