In a May 18, 2009, decision, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether women who took maternity leave decades ago (before discrimination based on pregnancy became illegal) can sue to have their pregnancy leave time count toward their pensions. The Court reversed the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling and held that they cannot.
Before the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) was enacted, the employer in this case (AT&T) based pension calculations on a seniority system that relied on its employees’ years of service. The system subtracted any uncredited leave time from years of service and gave less retirement credit for pregnancy leave than for general medical leave. In 1978, Congress added the PDA to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit employers from treating pregnancy leave differently than other medical leave.
AT&T changed its disability plan as soon as the Pregnancy Discrimination Act became effective. Its new plan provided the same service credit for pregnancy leave as for other medical leave, but it didn’t make any retroactive adjustments to its personnel policies that were in place before the PDA. The four employees who sued the company took pregnancy leave before the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and thus had more leave time subtracted from their service, resulting in smaller pensions.
The Ninth Circuit ruled that the four employees’ pregnancy leave time should be included in pension determinations. The Supreme Court disagreed and held that an employer doesn’t necessarily violate the Pregnancy Discrimination Act by paying pension benefits that were partially calculated under a pre-PDA rule, even if it gave less credit for pregnancy leave than for other medical leave. In reaching its decision, the Court also noted that Congress didn’t make the Pregnancy Discrimination Act retroactive.
If the Supreme Court had upheld the Ninth Circuit’s decision, thousands of women who took maternity leave before the PDA was enacted and are leaving the workforce soon would have been affected. The decision also would have had a huge impact on all the companies that would have been required to recalculate the pensions of the affected women.
I don’t disagree with this decision I’m just happy that women before me helped rule against Preg. discriminations which clearly discriminated women only.
I hope I can help close the gap between wage discrimination for the women that come after me. If wage discrimination did not exist women would be earning $1 to every $1 men make and not the .77 cents that federal researchers publish all the time.
The critical information in this case was the fact that Congress in 1978 did not make this law retroactive. Similarly this provides another glimpse of a Ninth Circuit which is frequently reversed perhaps more than any Circuit in the country, because its ideologues put ideology before the law.As an aside, it’s usually not good policy to reach back 30 years to change the way the law was intended to work, prospectively. What we have here are Plaintiffs that saw a large corporation to prey upon….the results could have been disastrous for the company, its shareholders (who are also employees) and for the other employeesa who would be adversely impacted by a favorable decision.There is, after all, only so much money that any business can have available…contrary to Congresses attitudes. The right policy has been in place for an actuarial amortization period (30 years)longer than what the company planned for. Thank God there is only one Ginsberg on the Court.