{"id":215210,"date":"2026-04-01T23:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/215210\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T23:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:11:12","slug":"feds-sue-bestbet-jacksonville-saying-it-violated-pregnant-worker-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/215210\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds sue Bestbet Jacksonville, saying it violated pregnant worker rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal lawsuit<\/a> is accusing Bestbet Jacksonville<\/a> of violating the rights of pregnant employees.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission<\/a> lawsuit argues the Arlington poker room and gaming center violated the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act<\/a> by being unwilling to make reasonable work accommodations that the law requires.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe EEOC will not hesitate to litigate cases where employers blatantly ignore federal law.\u201d EOC\u2019s Miami District Director, Evangeline Hawthorne, said in an April 1 release<\/a> about the lawsuit, which was filed March 31 in Jacksonville\u2019s federal court.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Bestbet poker room in Arlington.<\/p>\n

More: Bestbet can add sports betting in Jacksonville and Orange Park, but slots remain off table<\/a><\/p>\n

Bestbet didn\u2019t immediately respond to requests for comment made April 1.<\/p>\n

The commission argues the business followed a strict policy requiring employees to quit if they missed two weeks of work or more and didn\u2019t qualify for time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The agency argues the company forced one woman to quit after she asked to arrange six work shifts in January 2025 because she was following her doctor\u2019s advice about a high-risk pregnancy. Another employee was forced to quit the following month because she asked for leave to have her baby, the commission said in a release about the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The company “maintained a blanket policy prohibiting reasonable accommodations,” the lawsuit argued.<\/p>\n

Except when it would cause \u201cundue hardship,\u201d federal law requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers, the commission said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmployers must engage in an interactive dialogue with employees to find suitable accommodations, rather than simply denying the requests outright,\u201d the release quoted Kristen Foslid, regional attorney for EEOC\u2019s Miami district office as saying.<\/p>\n

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger but the court docket reflects nothing since the case was filed.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Bestbet Jacksonville facing lawsuit over pregnant worker rights<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal lawsuit is accusing Bestbet Jacksonville of violating the rights of pregnant employees. The U.S. Equal Employment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[98178,32791,22921,116,118,117,98177,98176],"class_list":["post-215210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-evangeline-hawthorne","tag-federal-court","tag-federal-lawsuit","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-pregnant-employees","tag-reasonable-accommodations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}