Colorado Pregnant Workers Fairness Act: Accommodations, Complaints, and Remedies

The Colorado Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires every employer in the state to provide reasonable workplace accommodations for pregnancy, physical recovery from childbirth, and related medical conditions, and to do so through a good-faith conversation rather than a flat yes or no. The law reaches employers of all sizes, including businesses with a single employee, which makes it broader than its federal counterpart. If your employer refuses, retaliates, or pushes you onto leave instead of adjusting your job, you have 300 days to file a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division.¹

You are protected whether you are already on the job or applying for one, and the conditions covered include the pregnancy itself, postpartum recovery, and complications arising from childbirth.

What Counts as a Reasonable Accommodation

A reasonable accommodation is any adjustment to your work environment or duties that lets you keep performing the essential parts of your job. The statute lists specific examples employers should already expect to provide:

More frequent or longer breaks, including additional restroom, food, and water breaks
Modified equipment or seating, such as a stool or an adjusted workstation
Limits on lifting (the statute sets no fixed weight; the limit tracks your medical needs)
Temporary transfer to a less strenuous or hazardous position, with the right to return to your original role
Light duty, if the employer already offers it to other employees in comparable situations
Help with manual labor by redistributing physically demanding tasks
Modified schedules, including flexibility for prenatal appointments

That list is not exhaustive. Any adjustment that addresses a pregnancy-related need can qualify, as long as it does not cross into undue hardship.¹

How to Request an Accommodation

When you ask for an accommodation, your employer is required to engage in a “timely, good-faith, and interactive process” with you. In practice, that means a real conversation. You explain the condition and what you need; your employer works with you toward something that keeps you productive without disrupting operations more than necessary.

Expect your employer to ask for medical documentation. The statute allows a request for a note from a licensed health-care provider confirming that the accommodation is medically necessary, and a straightforward letter from your OB-GYN or midwife is usually enough. The employer cannot use the documentation request as a stalling tactic or demand information beyond what is needed to verify the accommodation.¹

When an Employer Can Refuse

An employer can decline a specific accommodation if it would cause “undue hardship,” defined as significant difficulty or expense. The decision is case-by-case, and the statute identifies the factors that matter: the cost of the accommodation, the employer’s financial resources, the size and structure of the business, and the operational impact.

One point often cuts against employers. If the company already provides a similar accommodation to other employees for other reasons, the law presumes that giving the same accommodation to a pregnant worker is not an undue hardship. An employer that lets a worker with a back injury switch to light duty will struggle to argue that the same arrangement is too burdensome for a pregnant employee.¹

What Your Employer Cannot Do

The statute draws clear lines regardless of whether you have already received an accommodation, are in the middle of requesting one, or are an applicant who might need one:

Retaliate by demoting, cutting pay, reducing hours, or firing you for asking
Deny hiring, promotion, or work assignments because you need a pregnancy-related adjustment
Impose an accommodation you did not ask for or do not need
Place you on leave when a reasonable accommodation would let you keep working

The forced-leave prohibition carries real weight. Before this law, some employers routed pregnant workers straight into unpaid leave instead of making a simple workplace adjustment. Under the CPWFA, if a stool, a schedule change, or a temporary reassignment would solve the problem, the employer has to explore those options first.¹

The same anti-retaliation protection reaches coworkers who participate in an investigation. If you serve as a witness in someone else’s CPWFA complaint, your employer cannot punish you for it.

Nursing and Lactation After the Baby Arrives

Colorado law separately requires employers to accommodate nursing employees for up to two years after birth. You are entitled to reasonable unpaid break time (or you can use existing paid breaks and meal time) to express breast milk, and your employer must make reasonable efforts to provide a private space near your work area that is not a bathroom stall. If you pump during a regularly scheduled paid break, that time is paid at your normal rate, and salaried employees cannot have pay reduced for pumping breaks. These rules apply to every public and private employer with one or more employees.²

How the CPWFA Fits With Federal Law and Paid Leave

The federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, effective June 2023, provides similar accommodation rights but only covers employers with 15 or more employees. If you work at a smaller business, you still have state protection. When both laws apply, you get whichever is stronger on the specific issue.³

Keep the CPWFA separate in your mind from leave programs. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act gives eligible employees at larger companies up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for the birth and care of a newborn. Colorado’s Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) program provides paid leave benefits funded through payroll contributions, with up to 12 weeks and an additional four weeks available for pregnancy or childbirth complications. The CPWFA does something different: it is designed to keep you working through accommodations rather than send you home. You might use CPWFA accommodations to work through pregnancy, then draw FAMLI benefits for postpartum recovery.⁴

Filing a Complaint With the Colorado Civil Rights Division

If your employer refuses a reasonable accommodation, retaliates, or otherwise violates the CPWFA, you can file a discrimination complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD). The deadline is 300 days from the discriminatory act. Miss it and your claim is barred.⁵

You start by completing an online intake questionnaire through the CCRD’s electronic system, CaseConnect. Register for an account and describe what happened. Submitting the intake form does not file a formal complaint; it starts a jurisdictional review. CCRD staff may follow up with questions, and if the Division determines it has jurisdiction, it will help you draft and file the formal complaint of discrimination.⁶

Once the formal complaint is filed, the CCRD has 450 days to complete its administrative process. Your employer receives the charge and an information request, with 30 days to respond. You get a copy of that response and have 30 days to submit a rebuttal. The Division may seek more information from either side or from witnesses, then prepare a report for the Director, who issues a determination. If the process does not resolve the matter, the case can move to a formal hearing or civil court.⁷

What You Can Recover

Workers who prevail on a CPWFA claim can recover several forms of relief, aimed at putting you back where you would have been without the discrimination:

Reinstatement to your job, or an order requiring the employer to hire you if you were wrongfully rejected as an applicant
Back pay for lost wages and benefits, going back up to two years before you filed the charge
Front pay for future lost earnings when reinstatement is not practical
Compensatory damages for intentional discrimination, covering out-of-pocket costs and emotional harm such as mental anguish and loss of enjoyment of life
Punitive damages when the employer acted with malice or reckless indifference, though an employer showing good-faith compliance efforts may avoid them
Attorney’s fees and court costs for the prevailing party

Colorado caps the combined total of compensatory and punitive damages based on employer size, and those caps do not include back pay or front pay. Punitive damages are not available against the state or any political subdivision.⁸

1
Justia. Colorado Code 24-34-402.3 – Prohibition of Discrimination – Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Related Conditions – Reasonable Accommodations Required – Notice of Rights – Definitions
2
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO #7 Workplace Accommodations for Nursing Mothers
3
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Should Know About the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
4
FAMLI – Colorado. Individuals and Families
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Colorado Civil Rights Division. Discrimination
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Colorado Civil Rights Division. Case Connect
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Colorado Civil Rights Division. The Complaint Process
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Justia. Colorado Code 24-34-405 – Procedure – Hearings – Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies – Relief – Damages – Definitions