WNBA star Dearica Hamby files lawsuit against league and former team over alleged treatment while pregnant

By Kevin Dotson and Steve Almasy, CNN

(CNN) — Three-time WNBA all-star Dearica Hamby filed a discrimination and unlawful retaliation lawsuit Monday against the league and her former team, the Las Vegas Aces, accusing the team of treating her unfairly because she was pregnant, according to a public relations firm hired by her attorneys.

The federal lawsuit comes after Hamby was subjected to “repeated acts of intimidation, discrimination, and retaliation that culminated in January 2023 with the Aces trading Hamby (to the Los Angeles Sparks) because the star forward was pregnant,” the firm said in a release.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

The WNBA “took no steps to correct or address a clear-cut violation” of Hamby’s “rights under federal and state anti-discrimination law,” the lawsuit, filed in district court in Nevada, says.

The WNBA is “aware of today’s legal filing” and officials are “reviewing the complaint,” a WNBA spokesperson said.

The team, which moved to Las Vegas from San Antonio in 2018 after being sold, said Tuesday it stands behind its statement from May 2023 following a league investigation.

At that time, team officials said, “Our actions have always been consistent with our responsibility to hold ourselves to the highest professional standards, and the facts we presented were consistent with these standards. The well-being of our players and their families has and will always be at the forefront of who we are.”

Hamby played for the organization from 2015 to 2022, winning a WNBA title in her last season. She signed a two-year contract extension in June 2022, just seven months before she would be traded, according to the lawsuit.

Hamby first accused the Las Vegas Aces of wrongdoing shortly after she was traded in January 2023, claiming on social media that she’d been “lied to, bullied, manipulated, and discriminated against” by the team before it traded her.

Hamby believes she was traded because of her pregnancy.

According to the lawsuit, Hamby discovered she was pregnant in mid-July 2022 – about three weeks after she signed her extension with the Aces – and then informed head coach Becky Hammon and other team staff about the pregnancy in early August 2022. She kept playing, won the WNBA championship with the Aces in September 2022, and two days later during a public celebration in Las Vegas announced she was pregnant, according to the lawsuit.

“After making her pregnancy public, plaintiff Hamby experienced notable changes in the way she was treated by Las Vegas Aces staff,” the lawsuit says.

Around January 15, 2023, according to the suit, Hammon told Hamby in a phone call that Hamby was a “question mark,” that the Aces “needed bodies,” and that Hamby would not be ready to play in time for the 2023 season, for which preseason play would begin in April.

“In response, Hamby assured Hammon that she was committed to the team, would be giving birth during the offseason, and anticipated being fully ready to play by the start of the preseason,” the lawsuit says.

Also during the call, Hammon “accused plaintiff Hamby of signing her contract extension knowingly pregnant, a false accusation which Hamby denied,” and said Aces staff believed “that Hamby would get pregnant again,” according to the lawsuit.

According to the suit, Hamby asked Hammon two times on the call, “You’re trading me because I’m pregnant?” Hammon responded, according to the suit: “What do you want me to do?”

“Hammon did not deny the accusation that Hamby was being traded because she was pregnant,” the lawsuit says.

CNN has sought comment from Hammon.

In May 2023, Hammon told reporters: “(Her pregnancy) wasn’t a problem, and it never was why we made the decision to move Hamby.

“We made the decision to move Hamby because we could get three bodies in for her one contract … It was never an issue, and it was never the reason she was traded. It just wasn’t.”

At the time, the team said the WNBA’s investigation findings were inconsistent with what they knew about Hammon.

“Becky is a caring human being who forges close personal relationships with her players,” the team added.

Coach penalized by WNBA for policy violations

Hamby gave birth to her son, Legend, on March 6, 2023, the lawsuit says, and reported for training camp with the Sparks on April 28, 2023. She played in all 40 of the team’s regular season games, the suit says.

The WNBA investigated Hamby’s claims after she filed a complaint in January 2023 and later suspended Hammon for two games for violating league and team workplace policies. The WNBA also stripped the Aces of their 2025 first round draft pick for impermissible benefits in connection with Hamby’s contract, but Hamby’s attorneys say the league has declined to release the details of its investigation. A 2023 news release from the league said Hammon was suspended for “comments made by Hammon to Hamby in connection with Hamby’s recent pregnancy.”

“The WNBA is, at its core, a workplace, and federal laws have long shielded pregnant women from discrimination on the job. The world champion Aces exiled Dearica Hamby for becoming pregnant and the WNBA responded with a light tap on the wrist,” Hamby’s attorneys said in Monday’s statement.

“Every potential mother in the league is now on notice that childbirth could change their career prospects overnight. That can’t be right in one of the most prosperous and dynamic women’s professional sports leagues in America.”

The WNBPA –- the WNBA players’ union -– said in 2023 that the WNBA’s handling of the situation “misses the mark.”

When asked for a statement on Hamby’s lawsuit on Monday, WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael said: “We reiterate our previous position that in the 2020 Collective Bargaining Agreement, player parents gained protections that ensured becoming a parent did not mean the end of a career.

“Obviously, these protections did not change the nature of this business. Any team can trade any player for any legitimate reason or no reason at all. But that reason can never be on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, parental status, or pregnancy status.”

Hamby, who is also a two-time WNBA Sixth Woman of the Year, is averaging 19.2 points and 7.4 rebounds per game this season – both top 10 stats – and was voted into the all-star game for the third time.

Hamby recently won a bronze medal at the Olympics as a member of the US women’s 3×3 basketball team. In June, she signed an extension with the Sparks, keeping her with that team through 2025.

“I’m grateful for finding a home in LA with an ownership group and organization that believes in me and has been nothing but supportive since the day I got here,” Hamby said in a Sparks news release about the extension. “I look forward to continuing to build with my teammates and getting the Sparks back to the standard that has been historically set.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.