The case entered the Supreme Court's docket in October 2007 and concerned whether maternity leave taken before the passage of the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act can be considered in calculating employee pension benefits. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in June 2008. The case concerns Noreen Hulteen who took maternity leave in 1968. Due to complications resulting from giving birth she was hospitalized and required surgery. She missed a total of 240 days of work due to her pregnancy and surgery, but her employer, AT&T Corporation, only gave her 30 days of paid leave. Under company policy at the time, in contrast, employees who took disability leave were entitled to be paid as long as they were disabled.[1] Before the passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, it was lawful to award less service credit for pregnancy leave and exclude conditions related to pregnancy from employee sickness and accident benefits plans. The Supreme Court had previously upheld this in the cases of General Electric Company v. Gilbert (1976) and Geduldig v. Aiello (1974).[2]
As a result of the policy, when Hulteen retired in 1994 from AT&T, AT&T calculated her pension benefits by excluding 210 days that it would have credited if she had been granted leave because of any disability other than pregnancy.[1]
Shortly after her retirement, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union for the majority of AT&T's nonmanagement employees, filed charges of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging discrimination on the basis of sex and pregnancy in violation of Title VII. In 1998 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), agreed with the CWA, alleging discrimination on the basis of sex and pregnancy in violation of Title VII and issued a Letter of Determination finding reasonable cause to believe that AT&T had discriminated Hulteen and several other women. In 2001, Hulteen and several other women sued AT&T, stating its decision to pay them smaller pensions because of their pregnancy disability leaves constituted an unlawful employment practice under the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, an amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy and allows those on maternity leave the same coverage as other medical leave.[3] Lawyers for the women argued that each reduced retirement check that they receive is "a fresh act of discrimination" a reference to the first bill signed into law by President Barack Obama the Lilly Ledbetter law.[4]
AT&T's argument was that the 1978 law cannot be applied retroactively because congress did not make the law retroactive and that they were basing the pension calculations on conditions at the time of employment.[1][5]
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in hearing the case ruled in favor of Hulteen.[6] This decision directly conflicted with previous decisions of the Sixth and Seventh Circuits, helping to lead to the Supreme Courts decision to review the case. Oral arguments were heard on December 10, 2008.
Judgment
The Supreme Court ruled in a 7–2 decision on May 18, 2009, that maternity leave taken before the passage of the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act could be excluded in calculating employee pension benefits, even though leave taken for non-pregnancy related medical disabilities was not excluded.[7] As a result of the Court's opinion AT&T was not required to amend its discriminatory pension policy retroactive to the effective date of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. [1]
Justice Souter, in the majority opinion, wrote the following.
Although adopting a service credit rule unfavorable to those out on pregnancy leave would violate Title VII today, a seniority system does not necessarily violate the statute when it gives current effect to such rules that operated before the PDA. Benefit differentials produced by a bona fide seniority-based pension plan are permitted unless they are "the result of an intention to discriminate."
Justice Ginsburg dissented and said the following.
PDA does not require redress for past discrimination. It does not oblige employers to make women whole for the compensation denied them when, prior to the Act, they were placed on pregnancy leave, often while still ready, willing, and able to work, and with no secure right to return to their jobs after childbirth. But the PDA does protect women, from and after April 1979, when the Act became fully effective, against repetition or continuation of pregnancy-based disadvantageous treatment....I would hold that AT&T committed a current violation of Title VII when, post-PDA, it did not totally discontinue reliance upon a pension calculation premised on the notion that pregnancy-based classifications display no gender bias.
Significance
Critics of the decision like Christine L. Owens of the National Employment Law Project stated that "The court's decision could affect thousands of women who took pregnancy leaves decades ago and now are headed toward retirement; the only way women who took pregnancy leave before 1979 can make their leave time count is through the good graces of their company or through legislation by Congress."[4]
Proponents of the decision like Rae T. Vann of Equal Employment Advisory Council stated that the decision was a "sensible and straightforward ruling" and "Congress intended the Pregnancy Discrimination Act to be applied prospectively, not retroactively."[4]
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, genetic information, and retaliation for participating in a discrimination complaint proceeding and/or opposing a discriminatory practice.
The rights and duties for employees, labor unions, and employers are set by labor law in the United States. Labor law's basic aim is to remedy the "inequality of bargaining power" between employees and employers, especially employers "organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association". Over the 20th century, federal law created minimum social and economic rights, and encouraged state laws to go beyond the minimum to favor employees. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 requires a federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 but higher in 29 states and D.C., and discourages working weeks over 40 hours through time-and-a-half overtime pay. There are no federal laws, and few state laws, requiring paid holidays or paid family leave. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 creates a limited right to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in larger employers. There is no automatic right to an occupational pension beyond federally guaranteed Social Security, but the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 requires standards of prudent management and good governance if employers agree to provide pensions, health plans or other benefits. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 requires employees have a safe system of work.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 is a United States labor law that forbids employment discrimination against anyone, at least 40 years of age, in the United States. In 1967, the bill was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The ADEA prevents age discrimination and provides equal employment opportunity under the conditions that were not explicitly covered in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act also applies to the standards for pensions and benefits provided by employers, and requires that information concerning the needs of older workers be provided to the general public.
Pregnancy discrimination is a type of employment discrimination that occurs when expectant women are fired, not hired, or otherwise discriminated against due to their pregnancy or intention to become pregnant. Common forms of pregnancy discrimination include not being hired due to visible pregnancy or likelihood of becoming pregnant, being fired after informing an employer of one's pregnancy, being fired after maternity leave, and receiving a pay dock due to pregnancy. Pregnancy discrimination may also take the form of denying reasonable accommodations to workers based on pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions. Pregnancy discrimination has also been examined to have an indirect relationship with the decline of a mother's physical and mental health. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women prohibits dismissal on the grounds of maternity or pregnancy and ensures right to maternity leave or comparable social benefits. The Maternity Protection Convention C 183 proclaims adequate protection for pregnancy as well. Though women have some protection in the United States because of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, it has not completely curbed the incidence of pregnancy discrimination. The Equal Rights Amendment could ensure more robust sex equality ensuring that women and men could both work and have children at the same time.
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) of 1978 is a United States federal statute. It amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to "prohibit sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy."
Employment discrimination law in the United States derives from the common law, and is codified in numerous state, federal, and local laws. These laws prohibit discrimination based on certain characteristics or "protected categories." The United States Constitution also prohibits discrimination by federal and state governments against their public employees. Discrimination in the private sector is not directly constrained by the Constitution, but has become subject to a growing body of federal and state law, including the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Federal law prohibits discrimination in a number of areas, including recruiting, hiring, job evaluations, promotion policies, training, compensation and disciplinary action. State laws often extend protection to additional categories or employers.
The California Fair Employment and Housing Act of 1959, codified as Government Code §§12900 - 12996, is a California statute used to fight sexual harassment and other forms of unlawful discrimination in employment and housing, which was passed on September 18, 1959.
Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721 (2003), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was "narrowly targeted" at "sex-based overgeneralization" and was thus a "valid exercise of [congressional] power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 U.S. 484 (1974), was an equal protection case in the United States in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on whether unfavorable treatment to pregnant women could count as sex discrimination. It held that the denial of insurance benefits for work loss resulting from a normal pregnancy did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The California insurance program at issue did not exclude workers from eligibility based on sex but excluded pregnancy from a list of compensable disabilities. The majority found that even though only women would be directly affected by the administrative decision, the classification of normal pregnancy as non-compensable was not a sex-based classification and so the court would defer to the state so long as it could provide a rational basis for its categorization.
California Federal S. & L. Assn. v. Guerra, 479 U.S. 272 (1987), is a US labor law case of the United States Supreme Court about whether a state may require employers to provide greater pregnancy benefits than required by federal law, as well as the ability to require pregnancy benefits to women without similar benefits to men. The court held that The California Fair Employment and Housing Act §12945(b)(2), which requires employers to provide leave and reinstatement to employees disabled by pregnancy, is consistent with federal law.
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