Oh baby . . . 1.8 Million Dollar Jury Verdict: Pregnancy and Caregiver Discrimination
A western Pennsylvania jury yesterday awarded a verdict of 1.8 million dollars to a woman whose employer fired her three weeks into her six-week maternity leave. Carole Smith’s baby spent the first two weeks of his life in neonatal intensive care; the week after she brought him home, she was fired by her employer Normandy Properties LLC.
After only two and a half hours of deliberation, the jury awarded her $600,000 in compensatory damages and 1.2 million in punitive damages. Additional damages, such as backpay and attorneys fees, are not presented to a jury and may be awarded by the judge.
Although Congress has not specifically outlawed “caregiver discrimination,” the EEOC issued guidelines last year about the treatment of workers who have caregiving responsibilities. Here's the link:
The EEOC guidelines recognize that Title VII does not specifically prohibit discrimination against employees who are parents, or who have caregiving responsibilities. However, an employer cannot treat male and female employees who have such responsibilities differently. Thus, an employer may not refuse to give a woman with young children a job involving frequent travel, while allowing similarly situated men to have the opportunity to travel. Likewise, an employer who asks a female job candidate about her day care arrangements may violate Title VII, assuming that men are not asked similar questions.
Protection of caregivers is also implicit in other civil rights laws. The Americans with Disabilities Act forbids discrimination based on a relationship with or association with a disabled person. Therefore, an employer cannot treat an employee less favorably because the employee’s spouse or child is disabled and in need of extra care.
The EEOC has made clear that an employer cannot make decisions based on stereotypes – and one impermissible stereotype is that a mother of young children is not committed to the workplace.
A punitive damages verdict in excess of a million dollars is of course unusual. It is striking, however, that even in these difficult economic times, the jury was obviously not happy with an employer who took action against an employee because she had a sick infant. Employers need to be extremely careful in their treatment of employees with caregiving responsibilities.