Opinion ID: 390545
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Pre-Amendment Legality of Pan Am's Stop Policy

Text: 9 The Supreme Court, in General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125, 97 S.Ct. 401, 50 L.Ed.2d 343 (1976), held that an employer's disability insurance program which excluded coverage for pregnancy-caused disability did not, on its face, constitute sex discrimination under Title VII. In Nashville Gas Co. v. Satty, 434 U.S. 136, 98 S.Ct. 347, 54 L.Ed.2d 356 (1977), however, the Court made clear that pregnancy classifications which had a discriminatory impact on women were prima facie Title VII violations under the reasoning of Griggs v. Duke Power Co., supra (holding that the use of educational prerequisites and intelligence tests was prima facie race discrimination because of the discriminatory effect it had on Blacks). The district court, here, applied Griggs and concluded that Pan Am's mandatory pregnancy leave policy had a discriminatory impact on women because it had the effect of excluding a disproportionate number of women from employment. 437 F.Supp. at 431. We agree. 10 In deLaurier v. San Diego Unified School Dist., 588 F.2d 674 (9th Cir. 1978), we found that a mandatory pregnancy leave policy for San Diego school teachers had a discriminatory impact on women. We noted that it is plain that mandatory maternity leave is not the withholding of a potential benefit (as in Gilbert, supra), but is a restriction on pregnant women's employment opportunities. Id. at 677. Adopting the logic of deLaurier, we agree with the district court's finding that Pan Am's Stop Policy had a discriminatory impact on women and was, therefore, a prima facie Title VII violation.
11 The district court held that Pan Am carried its burden of showing that its Stop Policy was a Business Necessity and a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ). 437 F.Supp. at 432-35. Plaintiffs challenge this holding on the ground that the district court applied a too lenient standard. Consequently, we must determine the correct standard for these two defenses which we have previously recognized as being closely related. deLaurier v. San Diego Unified School Dist., 588 F.2d at 678. 12 The district court treated the two defenses interchangeably. In our view, however, the defenses apply to different types of Title VII violations. The BFOQ defense is applicable to employment practices that purposefully discriminate on the basis of sex while the Business Necessity defense is appropriately raised where facially neutral employment practices run afoul of Title VII only because of their disparate impact. 2 See Burwell v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc., 24 Empl.Prac.Dec. (CCH) P 31,213, at 17,378-79, 633 F.2d 361 (4th Cir. 1980). 13 In assessing the legality of employment practices which preceded the 1978 expansion of the definition of sex discrimination, we are compelled by the Supreme Court's reasoning in Gilbert to treat the Stop Policy as gender-neutral on its face. The district court, therefore, should have considered only whether Pan Am carried its burden of showing Business Necessity. 14 The standard applied by the district court combined phraseology associated with both the BFOQ and the Business Necessity defenses. 3 Even if the district court applied an improper standard, however, we conclude that its findings of fact establish that Pan Am's Stop Policy was justified as a Business Necessity. 15 Our most thorough consideration of the Business Necessity defense arose in the context of a challenge to the hiring practices of the Los Angeles Police Department. Blake v. City of Los Angeles, 595 F.2d 1367 (9th Cir. 1979). We found those practices to have a discriminatory impact on women, thus constituting a prima facie Title VII violation. In assessing the City's assertion of the Business Necessity defense, we quoted the standard accepted by the Supreme Court in Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U.S. 321, 332 n.14, 97 S.Ct. 2720, 2728 n.14, 53 L.Ed.2d 786 (1977): (A) discriminatory employment practice must be shown to be necessary to safe and efficient job performance. Blake, supra, at 1376. We stated further that, to meet the requirement, 16 the business purpose must be sufficiently compelling to override any (discriminatory) impact; the challenged practice must effectively carry out the business purpose it is alleged to serve; and there must be available no acceptable alternative policies or practices which would better accomplish the business purpose advanced, or accomplish it equally well with a lesser (discriminatory) impact. 17 Blake, supra, at 1376, quoting from Robinson v. Lorillard Corp., 444 F.2d 791, 798 (4th Cir. 1971). 18 The district court found that passenger safety was the primary justifying business purpose and that such safety was an essential aspect of Pan Am's business. Passenger safety is a sufficiently compelling purpose to satisfy the first part of the Robinson v. Lorillard test. The district court also found that Pan Am had shown that assessing the abilities of pregnant flight attendants on an individual basis was highly impractical, 437 F.Supp. at 435, and that appellants had not established any feasible alternate policy of lesser adverse impact. 437 F.Supp. at 434. These factual findings are not clearly erroneous. 19 The district court did not, however, specifically determine the degree of the Stop Policy's effectiveness in furthering passenger safety. The court found that flight attendants play an important role in certain safety operations, particularly emergency evacuations. 437 F.Supp. at 420-22. The court found further that there was medical evidence to support the view that a pregnant flight attendant, during her first two trimesters, was more likely than a nonpregnant flight attendant to be incapacitated during an emergency evacuation. 437 F.Supp. at 423. The court concluded that, in light of this medical evidence, the Stop Policy was reasonably calculated to further the safety objective. 437 F.Supp. at 434. Rather than requiring Pan Am to show that its policy was effective in furthering passenger safety, as required by the Lorillard standard, the district court's standard required only that the challenged practice be reasonable in light of the safety considerations. 20 The requirement that the challenged policy be effective in furthering the asserted business interest is not independent of the requirement that the interest be compelling. The degree of effectiveness required of the Stop Policy depends on the gravity of the safety hazard posed by a flight attendant who becomes incapacitated during an emergency. 4 21 The district court found that 1) (t)he ability of each flight attendant to perform at full capacity is vital to emergency management; 2) a flight attendant's ability to perform her emergency functions might be impaired by fatigue, nausea and vomiting, or spontaneous abortion, all of which occur with some regularity during the first two trimesters of pregnancy; and 3) the gravity of the safety risk, measured by the likelihood of harm and the probable severity of harm, was great enough to warrant the imposition of a stringent personnel policy for flight attendants. None of these findings is clearly erroneous. 22 In light of these findings, we conclude that Pan Am has shown a sufficient correlation between its Stop Policy and passenger safety to satisfy an appropriately narrow standard for the Business Necessity defense. 23