Paula Byrne worked at Google for over a decade, moving from Ireland to the Bay Area in 2015 and delaying parenthood while pouring herself into her job. But then, when she was ready to start a family, her life flipped on its head. Around seven months into her maternity leave in 2023, Google laid Byrne off, leaving her without prospects for healthcare or income in the early months of her child's life.

Now, she is suing the Mountain View tech giant. In a complaint filed Wednesday in Santa Clara Superior Court, Byrne alleges that Google focused a layoff round on the new parents on her team, leaving in place employees without young children or upcoming leaves. The lawsuit accuses Google of discrimination and the failure to prevent it, as well as of violating the California Family Rights Act, which regulates workers' rights to go on leave. Google issued a blanket denial of the lawsuit's claims.

"I really enjoyed working at Google," Byrne told SFGATE. "I thought I was going to stay at Google. I thought that Google was going to support me when I exercised my right to have a child."

After starting as a Google contractor in 2010, Byrne earned a full-time role and built an established career as a training manager at the massive company. By 2021, she led a team of full-time employees and temporary contractors within Google's devices and services customer care division. For around 12 years, she worked long hours and put pregnancy on hold, she said, but decided to use in vitro fertilization to become pregnant at 42.

According to the lawsuit, her last pre-leave performance review was positive, with Byrne's manager writing that he was "looking forward to seeing Paula extend her influence" with a bigger team. Before taking leave two weeks early in April 2023 due to difficulties with her pregnancy, she trained interim replacements and documented her responsibilities.

While on leave that November, she returned from a birthday celebration at a spa to a flurry of missed texts and calls, she said. She learned from co-workers that she had been laid off along with about half her team. Byrne felt blindsided, she said: "It was just shock. I was just shocked, I couldn't believe it."

According to the lawsuit, five of the seven people laid off from Byrne's team were on, had recently requested or used parental leave. The six employees who kept their jobs -- including the worker who took over Byrne's duties -- didn't have young children, medical conditions or upcoming leaves, the complaint says. Byrne was later told she could apply for other Google roles, per the complaint, but was cut off from the internal systems to look for those jobs. A former colleague found her the applications, but none netted offers.

One of Byrne's lawyers, Tracy Lemmon, told SFGATE on Tuesday that to her, the alleged parental divide in the team's layoffs "screams 'disparate impact'" -- a tenet of anti-discrimination law. She also noted that laws are in place to protect parents' rights to return to equivalent jobs after parental leave; companies are allowed to lay off workers on leave, but it can't be because they took the time off.

"Paula couldn't have been achieving harder," Lemmon said. "The people who laid her off said, 'This had nothing to do with your performance.' But then what did it have to do with? Those are the questions we're raising here. And we think, unfortunately, we know the answers."

Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini shared the company's anti-discrimination policies with SFGATE and denied the allegations in the lawsuit.

"We completely disagree with these claims," Mencini wrote. "We have zero-tolerance for discrimination and take all concerns very seriously. Reorganizations are part of the normal course of business, and in some cases include role eliminations. Teams make decisions based purely on business needs and in line with our very clear anti-discrimination policies."

In 2023, Google shed 12,000 workers in various layoff rounds, a decision that CEO Sundar Pichai called "a difficult decision to set us up for the future."

Byrnes' layoff was particularly difficult, as accepting Google's severance package would have stopped her from filing a discrimination claim and would've prevented her from speaking out against the company, Lemmon said. That left her, as a new parent with medical difficulties, without income or healthcare. After the layoff, Byrne left the Bay Area to live near family in the United Kingdom, and she said she had to ask for forbearance on her mortgage while she sells her East Palo Alto condominium. She is looking for a new job, but the search is difficult.

"It's like the rug has just been pulled from underneath," Byrne said. "So I want for them -- the motivation I have is for them to be accountable and make some changes."

She and Lemmon said they'd like to see Google track parental status when they're planning layoffs to make sure that the company isn't discriminating with their chosen cuts. The lawsuit also seeks economic and punitive damages. It isn't the first accusation Google's seen regarding treatment of pregnancy; a high-profile story in 2019 saw a memo go viral within the company alleging discrimination against a pregnant employee and retaliation when she brought the issue to HR.

Byrne said aside from the layoff itself, her inability to understand why she lost her job made her feel dismissed and unheard by a company she cared deeply about.

"I started in Google when it was like, 'Don't be evil, do the right thing,'" Byrne said, referencing the company's old unofficial motto. "And I don't think they're doing the right thing here. I just really don't."