Opinion ID: 780505
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Saks's Infertility Discrimination Claim

Text: 21 Saks claims that the Plan violates the PDA because it provides fewer benefits for infertility procedures than for treatment of other types of illnesses. The central issue with respect to this claim is a threshold one of coverage: Whether the PDA's prohibition of discrimination on the basis of pregnancy and related medical conditions extends to discrimination on the basis of infertility. We have no doubt that by including the phrase related medical conditions, the statutory language clearly embraces more than pregnancy itself. See Carney v. Martin Luther Home, Inc., 824 F.2d 643, 647-48 (8th Cir.1987). The question is how much more. 22 Every exercise in statutory construction must begin with the words of the text. See Mallard v. United States Dist. Court, 490 U.S. 296, 300-01, 109 S.Ct. 1814, 104 L.Ed.2d 318 (1989); Auburn Hous. Auth. v. Martinez, 277 F.3d 138, 143 (2d Cir.2002). The text's plain meaning can best be understood by looking to the statutory scheme as a whole and placing the particular provision within the context of that statute. See Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337, 341, 117 S.Ct. 843, 136 L.Ed.2d 808 (1997) (The plainness or ambiguity of statutory language is determined by reference to the language itself, the specific context in which that language is used, and the broader context of the statute as a whole.); K Mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 486 U.S. 281, 291, 108 S.Ct. 1811, 100 L.Ed.2d 313 (1988) (In ascertaining the plain meaning of the statute, the court must look to the particular statutory language at issue, as well as the language and design of the statute as a whole.). We have stated that the preferred meaning of a statutory provision is one that is consonant with the rest of the statute. Auburn Hous. Auth., 277 F.3d at 144; accord United States v. Interlink Sys., Inc., 984 F.2d 79, 82 (2d Cir.1993). 23 Title VII is, at its core, a statute that prohibits discrimination because of, inter alia, an individual's sex. The PDA modified Title VII by requiring that discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions be considered discrimination because of sex. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(k). Because reproductive capacity is common to both men and women, we do not read the PDA as introducing a completely new classification of prohibited discrimination based solely on reproductive capacity. Rather, the PDA requires that pregnancy, and related conditions, be properly recognized as sex-based characteristics of women. 24 This understanding of the PDA comports with the Supreme Court's reasoning in International Union v. Johnson Controls, Inc., in which the Court indicated that, although discrimination based on childbearing capacity violates Title VII as modified by the PDA, discrimination based on fertility alone would not. See 499 U.S. 187, 198, 111 S.Ct. 1196, 113 L.Ed.2d 158 (1991). We conclude that under this reasoning, for a condition to fall within the PDA's inclusion of pregnancy... and related medical conditions as sex-based characteristics, that condition must be unique to women. 3 25 Infertility is a medical condition that afflicts men and women with equal frequency. See Joint App. Ex. 10 at FC 6 (stating that approximately one third of infertility problems are due to male factors, one third due to female factors, and one third due to couple factors); see also Cintra D. Bentley, A Pregnant Pause: Are Women Who Undergo Fertility Treatment to Achieve Pregnancy Within the Scope of Title VII's Pregnancy Discrimination Act?, 73 Chi.-Kent L.Rev. 391, 394-95 (1998). Including infertility within the PDA's protection as a related medical condition[] would result in the anomaly of defining a class that simultaneously includes equal numbers of both sexes and yet is somehow vulnerable to sex discrimination. Because such a result is incompatible with the PDA's purpose of clarifying the definition of because of sex and the Supreme Court's interpretation of the PDA in Johnson Controls, we hold that infertility standing alone does not fall within the meaning of the phrase related medical conditions under the PDA. Thus, even if we were to agree with Saks that the Plan provided inferior coverage for infertility, such inferior coverage would not violate the PDA. 4 26 In sum, we find that, because the exclusion of surgical impregnation procedures disadvantages infertile male and female employees equally, Saks's claim does not fall within the purview of the PDA.