California woman sues after she lost her job when her children made noise while was working at home

Drisana Rios
Drisana Rios

A California woman with two small children says she was fired from her job as an insurance account executive after the youngsters were noisy during her work calls.

Drisana Rios, 35, from San Diego, filed a lawsuit last month against Hub International, a global insurance brokerage firm, alleging gender discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination.

The mother of a four-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son, she began working from home in March, when the coronavirus pandemic caused offices to shut.

She said in the court documents that she had “worked harder than I ever have in my entire career”, juggling looking after the children with work.

Rios
Rios

But she told Good Morning America that she was told it was "unprofessional" that her children could be heard in the background of her work calls.

"He said, 'The kids could be heard on business calls with clients. It's unprofessional,'" she told the programme.

On Instagram she posted a photo of her daughter holding up a sign reading: "My Mommy got fired because her boss didn't want to hear me in the background."

She wrote: "I finally had enough of the discrimination that my boss was giving me for him not being OK with hearing my kids in the background of my calls.

"He wanted me to figure out a way to keep the kids quiet."

Ms Rios in her suit, filed in Superior Court in San Diego County, said her supervisor also assigned her several tasks with short turnaround times, even though the tasks were not urgent.

She said she told her supervisor that afternoon calls worked best for her because that was when her youngest child napped, but her supervisor “continued scheduling calls during lunch times, when Plaintiff was feeding her children, nursing or putting her child down for a nap.”

Rios
Rios

Ms Rios also endured “sexist statements” from her supervisor, who was “motivated by a clear bias against mothers,” the complaint says.

“I continued my normal duties as an account executive but now added two young children to the mix,” Ms Rios said in a statement through her lawyer.

“It was extremely difficult, but I managed to meet all the deadlines. There was some days where I had to work late to meet rush deadlines or any duties I couldn’t finish during the day because I had to care for both of my young kids at the same time.”

She claims she was eventually told to address her “time-management issues” with another supervisor.

The supervisor then accused her of being “defensive” and said he was “tired of accommodating” her.

After detailing her treatment multiple times to the company's human resources, Ms Rios said she was let go on June 2, with the company citing the pandemic’s negative effect on its revenue as the reason.

She is seeking unspecified monetary damages from Hub International, including back-pay and compensation for mental and emotional distress.

A Hub International spokesman said: "While we can't comment on pending litigation, Hub is proud to have successfully transitioned 90 per cent of its 12,000-plus employees to working remotely from home throughout the COVID-19 pandemic."