New York Times

UPS Worker's Pregnancy Discrimination Suit Reinstated by Supreme Court

March 26, 2015

by Adam Liptak

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday revived a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit against United Parcel Service, saying that lower courts had used the wrong standard to determine whether the company had discriminated against one of its drivers.

The case concerned Peggy Young, a UPS worker whose doctor recommended that she avoid lifting anything heavy after she became pregnant. The company refused to give her lighter duties to accommodate her and placed her on unpaid leave in 2006.

Ms. Young sued under the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which requires employers to treat “women affected by pregnancy” the same as “other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work.”

Her lawsuit was dismissed, with a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va.,saying the pregnancy law does not give pregnant women “a ‘most favored nation’ status.”

“One may characterize the UPS policy as insufficiently charitable,” Judge Allyson Kay Duncan wrote for that court, “but a lack of charity does not amount to discriminatory animus directed at a protected class of employees.”

The Supreme Court, by a 6-to-3 vote, vacated that decision and said Ms. Young deserved another shot at trying to prove that the company had treated her differently from “a large percentage of nonpregnant workers” who may have been offered accommodations.

UPS has since changed its policy to offer light duty to pregnant women.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote the majority opinion in the case, Young v. United Parcel Service, No. 12-1226.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas dissented.