Opinion ID: 780505
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Couple Analysis

Text: 19 Saks further contends that the district court improperly endorsed a couple analysis, defined by the parties as a finding that a female-specific exclusion does not constitute sex discrimination so long as male and female employees and their respective partners receive the same health benefits when considered as a couple. Franklin Covey, on the other hand, maintains that the couple analysis is used regularly by courts in determining whether an employer's benefits plan constitutes sex discrimination under Title VII. We reject Saks's contention that the district court relied on the couple analysis, and find that Judge McMahon properly focused on the effect of the exclusion on employees, male and female, not on the benefits offered to the couple ( i.e., the employee and his or her spouse, considered together). See Saks, 117 F.Supp.2d at 328. Contrary to Franklin Covey's suggestion, moreover, we find that the Supreme Court's decision in Newport News gives us no reason to adopt the couple analysis, as defined above, as part of this Circuit's PDA or Title VII jurisprudence. 20 In Newport News, the Supreme Court held that an employee health benefits plan violated Title VII by covering pregnancy-related costs for employees but excluding such costs for the spouses of employees. Reasoning that this exclusion would necessarily affect only the coverage offered to the female spouses of male employees, the Court found that the exclusion discriminated against male employees. See 462 U.S. at 684-85, 103 S.Ct. 2622. The Court, therefore, focused on whether male and female employees received equal coverage under their health benefits packages. It did not hold, as Franklin Covey seems to suggest, that an across-the-board female-specific exclusion would pass muster under Title VII or the PDA, so long as all couples received the same benefits. Under Franklin Covey's couple analysis, exclusions based on pregnancy would not violate Title VII, a conclusion that has been squarely rejected by Congress and the Supreme Court. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(k); Newport News, 462 U.S. at 684, 103 S.Ct. 2622. 2