The Oregonian | By Aimee Green | August 28, 2019
A woman is suing her family’s dentist office in Bend after she says she was told she wasn’t welcome to nurse her 16-month-old son while the dentist pulled a tooth from her 5-year-old daughter.
Kalee Kellough, a 31-year-old La Pine resident, has asked a judge to declare that Willamette Dental Group’s Bend office unlawfully discriminated against her based on her sex.
“Under Oregon law, women have the right to breast-feed children in any public place, and women cannot be discriminated against for breast-feeding in places of public accommodation,” says the lawsuit filed last week.
Willamette Dental Group didn’t return calls seeking comment Monday and Tuesday. The company, based in Hillsboro, has 50 dental offices across Oregon, Washington and Idaho, according to its website.
Kellough told The Oregonian/OregonLive that her daughter had a root canal done at the same office earlier this year and she had nursed her son throughout that procedure. This summer, her daughter started complaining that her tooth still hurt and so Kellough, her daughter and son arrived at the office July 31 to have the tooth removed, she said.
To soothe her 16-month-old and keep him from wandering the office, Kellough said she began breastfeeding him. She said a dentist who had never worked on her daughter’s teeth before, Matthew Haehlen, entered the room and left.
Then, according to Kellough, a female office manager came in and told her the dentist wouldn’t perform the procedure if Kellough was in the room.
Kellough said when she asked if it was because of the hazard nitrous oxide might pose, the office manager said that wasn’t it.
“The office manager said, ‘The dentist doesn’t feel comfortable with this happening in the room,” Kellough said.
“I’m really curious which would be more distracting: a screaming baby or a nursing baby?” Kellough said. “I would think a screaming baby, rather than a baby who nurses for comfort.”
Kellough said she was told she and her son could go out to the waiting room, but Kellough said that wasn’t a viable alternative because her daughter wanted her in the room while her tooth was pulled.
Although Haehlen isn’t listed as a defendant, he’s named in the lawsuit. He didn’t respond to messages left with with representatives of Willamette Dental Group.
The lawsuit says Kellough was escorted out.
Willamette Dental Group referred Kellough to another dental office, but Kellough said that office hasn’t been able to schedule her daughter for the tooth removal until this Thursday and her daughter has experienced some pain.
Michael Fuller, the Portland lawyer representing Kellough, said he doesn’t know of another case in Oregon that has asked a judge to find a mother’s rights were violated under the state’s anti-discrimination law while she tried to breastfeed in a public place or a business open to the public.
As breastfeeding has seen a resurgence in the U.S. in the past several decades, many women have complained about discrimination for nursing in public, but far fewer have sued over that particular issue. In 2016, an Indiana woman sued a CVS pharmacy after she claimed employees made derogatory remarks about her breastfeeding her daughter when she went in to get a flu shot. Last fall, a Kentucky woman filed a suit against the Texas Roadhouse after she claimed a restaurant manager tried to cover her breast with a napkin while she nursed her baby.
Kellough’s suit seeks no damages at this point, but Fuller said if the judge agrees, he could amend the lawsuit to seek damages.
The suit was filed Thursday in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
