A woman fired from her job for being too "irresistible"
will get another chance at her sex-discrimination lawsuit after the Iowa Supreme Court ruled this week to reconsider the case.
Melissa Nelson says she spent 10 happy years working as a
dental hygienist for Dr. James
Knight until he
blindsided her with a pink slip, claiming Nelson was a threat to his marriage.
The all-male Iowa State
Supreme Court ruled in
December that Knight was within his legal rights when he fired Nelson because
the termination was not based on gender.
Knight's
attorney says the decision to terminate Nelson was legal, telling ABC News he
believes the court will reaffirm its decision because "the law has not
changed."
"Dr.
Knight's dismissal of Mrs. Nelson was perfectly legal according to all of the
well-established case law not only in Iowa but in every other jurisdiction that
has considered similar claims," attorney Stu Cochrane said in a statement.
Meanwhile,
Nelson hopes that even if the law hasn't changed, how the judges interpret it
will.
"I can
tell you she was surprised and delighted by the news that the Iowa Supreme
Court has withdrawn its earlier ruling," Nelson's attorney, Paige Fiedler,
told ABC News in a statement. "Not only does this breathe new life into
her court case, it eliminates what many of us believed was a harmful legal and
misguided precedent."
Information from ABC News' Alyssa
Newcomb and Tanya Rivero was used in this report.
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