Peggy Young (right) leaving the Supreme Court building in December.
A former UPS driver will get another day in court—after having gone all the way to the Supreme Court with her pregnancy discrimination claim. Peggy Young was forced onto unpaid leave and lost her health insurance for nine months when UPS would not make adjustments to her work in response to medical advice that she not lift more than 20 pounds. Wednesday, the Supreme Court
sent her case back to lower court, which had ruled for UPS.
Writing on behalf of the majority, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer said the lower court is required to determine if the employer had "legitimate, nondiscriminatory, nonpretextual justification" for treating employees differently. [...]
Breyer said the lower court failed to consider the effects of UPS policies that covered non-pregnant workers who might have disabilities, injuries or otherwise might need accommodations, and asked, “Why, when the employer accommodated so many, could it not accommodate pregnant women as well?”
Breyer said there is a "genuine dispute as to whether UPS provided more favorable treatment to at least some employees whose situation cannot reasonably be distinguished from Young's."
Young's lawyers pointed out that
UPS gave light duty to workers who had had strokes or other non-pregnancy medical conditions, and reassigned drivers who lost their commercial drivers licenses, including for drunk driving. But UPS argued that those cases were legally different from pregnancy and it therefore wasn't illegal to offer light duty to those people and not to a pregnant woman. Since Young's 2006 experience, UPS has changed its policies to better accommodate pregnancy.
This case isn't over, but coming from the court that brought us Hobby Lobby, this is an important victory for women in the workplace. Justices Roberts, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan joined Breyer. Justice Alito concurred, while Justices Kennedy, Thomas, and Scalia dissented.