ONTD

Melisandre (GoT 3x06) wonderwomanhero
11:16 am - 11/23/2012

Former ‘Price Is Right’ Model Awarded $7.7M in Termination Suit



“The Price Is Right” producers owe a former show model $7.7 million in punitive damages for discriminating against her after her pregnancy.

Brandi Cochran was a model on the game show for seven years. She sued FremantleMedia North America and “The Price Is Right” productions, claiming pregnancy discrimination and wrongful termination. She said producers rejected her when she tried to return to work in 2010 after maternity leave and a California jury awarded her the punitive damages Wednesday.



The $7.7 million will be added to the $777,000 in actual damages she has already been awarded.

Cochran, 41, was pregnant with twins after years of trying to conceive but, she said, the show’s executive producer was not pleased.

“He was mad at me and it was hard to comprehend someone upset that I was having twins,” she told ABC affiliate KABC-TV. “And then I would get questions, ‘How long are you going to work?’ ‘Are you going to work if you get really big?’”

The former model said her co-workers called her a “wide load” and said she would break the set with her added pounds from pregnancy. When Cochran’s baby bump started to show, the producers stopped calling her completely.

Months after her maternity leave in 2010, Cochran tried to return to the show but was rejected, she said.

“They ignored me, for probably about four months, trying to get a direct response about working,” she told KABC.

FremantleMedia is appealing the verdict.

“We believe the verdict in this case was the result of a flawed process in which the court, among other things, refused to allow the jury to hear and consider that 40 percent of our models have been pregnant and other important evidence to our defense,” the company said in a statement to KABC. “We expect to be fully vindicated after the matter has been reviewed.” (lol these thirsty bitches)

SOURCE

I saw this on ABC News last night and I'm honestly disgusted by how they treated her. Losing your job because you want to bring life into the world? Ridiculous. She should not have been fired.
Oh and in regards to the video above, David Muir could get it. I regret nothing.

Leave a Comment
a_new_haven 23rd-Nov-2012 04:44 pm (UTC)
I work in childcare, with only women, and while most people have been amazingly fantastic with me being pregnant (especially now being very pregnant), there are still one or two who get pissy when I can't do something like carry buckets of dishes back and forth and up and down stairs for half an hour every day. One is mad that other staff members help me do this. What?
fakevoices 23rd-Nov-2012 04:46 pm (UTC)
that is sad
a_new_haven 23rd-Nov-2012 04:50 pm (UTC)
Like I said, most have been amazing, and the people helping me with the stuff I just can't do anymore have volunteered, and my bosses have said absolutely let people help, etc., but there are always going to be some people at every job who are insensitive about everything, not just pregnancy. There is no job growth in my profession, so having a child can't stunt it :P.
h0tfuss 23rd-Nov-2012 05:14 pm (UTC)
Stuff like that falls on the employer not managing the situation very well. Once I was working in a large bookstore and three girls got pregnant at around the same time. It became a problem that I was expected to make up physically for what they could no longer do. I'm a small girl and all of a sudden I had to carry all of the large shipments by myself while the pregnant girls literally sat around the back room. My back is still fucked up from that summer.
a_new_haven 23rd-Nov-2012 05:18 pm (UTC)
My employers are actually fantastic about it, other staff members have volunteered on their own to do that one smallaspect of my job that isn't actually assigned specifically to me all the time, everyone can do it, and it really affects no one. No one really gets why this person cares. She hasn't been tasked with doing it.
h0tfuss 23rd-Nov-2012 05:36 pm (UTC)
She might have had a few bad experiences like I did. I see both sides of this...obviously women shouldn't be penalized for getting pregnant, but I hate the expectation that other employees should be willing to take over the more physical duties without getting any sort of raise or reward. It's wonderful that your co-workers are volunteering to help you, but it's sort of horrible that they even have to, that your company hasn't hired a temp.
a_new_haven 23rd-Nov-2012 05:46 pm (UTC)
It's not how it works, though. The dishes are not assigned to any one person. People have different schedules all the time, they're not my job. No one is doing my job for me, it's that rather than put me on that schedule for the next few weeks, they're putting someone else there. Some people haven't had to do it in years, so now they are. I've been stuck doing them for almost a year, and countless times before when they were in classrooms. It rotates, so for the next month, I'm just being rotated out, it's not really someone taking on my job for me, it's just a change in scheduling. I don't really want to get into this person on here, I will just say that she very much enjoys creating drama, even when it doesn't affect her. It is something new every day.
a_new_haven 23rd-Nov-2012 05:52 pm (UTC)
The volunteering I'm referring to is just that several people have said they'd do it, so they just do rather than change the whole schedule for half an hour of work, which they would do if people hadn't volunteered (some people like doing it). Again, it's not one person's job, it's a whoever is scheduled that day to do it's job, and I have done it 10 times more than most, so it's more thanfair to not have to for 6 weeks. And again, the o my person with the issue is the one it has nothing to do with who just likes making drama.
a_new_haven 23rd-Nov-2012 05:53 pm (UTC)
That's not to say I don't see your point in general, I'm just saying that's not the case here. It's hard to explain how our scheduling works :).
h0tfuss 23rd-Nov-2012 05:55 pm (UTC)
Ha, no I get it. I see you're not in the States? The culture of pregnancy and maternity leave is sooooo different here, unfortunately.
frenchverbs 23rd-Nov-2012 05:58 pm (UTC)
Did you ever speak up on the issue? I was working with a group of pregnant women when I was in hs - seriously, something must have been in the water because four of them got pregnant the same month - and I was asked to do what they couldn't, i.e. picking up boxes. I said I would try, but the boxes were too heavy for me to do everything by myself. I asked for help, was denied, so I told my boss that I quit. He panicked because he'd be screwed by the end of the year since everyone was due then. He hired two additional people to help out.
h0tfuss 23rd-Nov-2012 06:03 pm (UTC)
It was just a summer job while I was in college and I wouldn't have been able to find a new job for only a month before the term started. It just sucked because those women really were the bad cliches who used their pregnancies as excuses to get out of doing easy stuff they didn't want to do.
steph313 23rd-Nov-2012 06:01 pm (UTC)
That's awful. I just had a baby a few weeks ago, and in a very male dominated industry (I manage a restaurant--where the kitchen is 100% male, the corporate bigwigs are probably 75% male, and only the service staff is predominately female) but everyone was really supportive and helpful. Never doing anything more than saying, "Yeah, sure" if I needed something lifted or the likes. I was lucky.

I remember a bartender getting pregnant a few years back and another one of the bartenders getting so pissy that she'd have to help get ice or lift cases of beer for her as one shift was ending and the other beginning. It's like...really? There's no set rule as to who gets what and it takes five minutes. Not to mention, the pregnant girl did plenty of extra prepping and cleaning to make up for what she couldn't lift, but it was never good enough.

Edited at 2012-11-23 06:04 pm (UTC)
a_new_haven 23rd-Nov-2012 06:06 pm (UTC)
It's just that one person, really, and honestly, she creates drama everywhere over everything, so it's not surprising. Everyone else has been amazing. In fact, while I was writing that original comment, my coworker came back from lunch 10 minutes early and said, "I don't have anything to do, you can take an extra 10 minutes on your lunch and relax." I don't expect anything from anyone, but it's really nice when people can see you need things and help (and I would absolutely be doing the same for others and have). That's always nice, especially since I HATE asking for help.

This other woman just drives me nuts, so I'm venting on the internet :P.
a_new_haven 23rd-Nov-2012 06:07 pm (UTC)
And congrats!
Leave a comment
This page was loaded May 18th 2013, 5:52 pm GMT.