Opinion ID: 381263
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Controlling Law Concerning Sex Discrimination

Text: 43 The district court noted that constitutional claims of sexual discrimination based on an employer's refusal to grant sick pay on the same terms for pregnancy as for illnesses or disabilities are foreclosed under Geduldig, supra, unless the policy can be shown to be a pretext for sexual discrimination. See Nashville Gas Co. v. Satty, supra, 434 U.S. at 143, 98 S.Ct. at 352 (equating sick leave pay with disability insurance benefits, the latter of which were at issue both in Geduldig, supra, and Gilbert, supra ). 44 But, as the district court recognized, Geduldig did not hold that the exclusion of pregnancy or maternity absence from disability benefits can never be found unconstitutionally discriminatory. A plan where distinctions involving pregnancy are mere pretexts designed to effect an invidious discrimination against the members of one sex will not pass constitutional muster. Geduldig, 417 U.S. at 496 n. 20, 94 S.Ct. at 2491-2492. See Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 248, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 2051, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976); Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 99 S.Ct. 2282, 2292-93, 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979). See also Gilbert, supra, 429 U.S. at 136, 97 S.Ct. at 408; Satty, supra, 434 U.S. at 143-44, 98 S.Ct. at 352. 45 In this case, for instance, if the plan were to operate to prevent employees from accumulating the eight weeks of leave which may be necessary for childbirth (see Gilbert, supra, 429 U.S. at 130 n. 6, 97 S.Ct. at 405 (repeating the findings of the district court)) and if no further leave were allowed except under the terms of the plan, then the plan may produce a discriminatory effect which in turn may be proved pretextual. 46 Moreover, within the Title VII realm the Supreme Court has recently supplemented its pretextual analysis of discrimination in maternity policies by drawing a distinction between employer policies that penalize (through loss of employment opportunities attendant upon loss of seniority rights) a woman who becomes pregnant and the Gilbert-Geduldig -type policies which deny her benefits of a health plan during maternity leave. 47 Petitioner's decision not to treat pregnancy as a disease or disability for purposes of seniority retention is not on its face a discriminatory policy. . . . 48 We have recognized, however, that both intentional discrimination and policies neutral on their face but having a discriminatory effect may run afoul of § 703(a)(2) (42 U.S.C. § 2000e(a)(2) (1976)). Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 431, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971). It is beyond dispute that petitioner's policy of depriving employees returning from pregnancy leave of their accumulated seniority acts both to deprive them of employment opportunities and to adversely affect (their) status as an employee. 49 Here, by comparison, petitioner has not merely refused to extend to women a benefit that men cannot and do not receive, but has imposed on women a substantial burden that men need not suffer. The distinction between benefits and burdens is more than one of semantics. We held in Gilbert that § 703(a)(1) (42 U.S.C. § 2000e(a)(1) (1976)) did not require that greater economic benefits be paid to one sex or the other, because of their differing roles in 'the scheme of human existence,'  429 U.S., at 139, n. 17, 97 S.Ct., at 410, n. 17. But that holding does not allow us to read § 703(a)(2) to permit an employer to burden female employees in such a way as to deprive them of employment opportunities because of their different role. 50 Satty, supra, 434 U.S. at 140-42, 98 S.Ct. at 351. 7 51 It is not entirely unthinkable that an analogous distinction might be drawn in the scrutiny of maternity leave policies under the Constitution. We are reluctant, however, to engage in extended analysis of the implications of Satty without an adequate factual record. Plaintiff should be permitted to present the facts and her analysis of them to the district court. 52 Ms. Hanson contends that the Exchange plan imposes a burden upon women who take maternity leave. She alleges that the plan envisioned terminating the position of any woman who took the full eight weeks' pregnancy leave, complaint para. 8, App. 2, and her affidavit states that her inquiries were directed not only at pay and insurance coverage during the leave period but at the continuing status of her position, affidavit para. 10, App. 40. If a pregnant woman under this plan risked both loss of her job by continuing on maternity leave beyond the expiration of her accumulated annual-sick leave, and consequent denial of accumulated continuous service for purposes of longevity compensation, 2 U.S.C. § 60j (1976), should she return, when employees disabled for other reasons do not risk similar losses (because of the catastrophic illness provision), pregnant workers may be saddled with a discriminatory sex-based burden. 53 We note additionally that the plan may burden or discriminatorily affect women in another fashion; that is, women may have to struggle with the plan's ambiguity, risking discharge for seeking clarification, when men would not be subjected to this difficulty. Thus, the ambiguity in the policy itself may amount to a sex-based discrimination, even if the way the policy operates in practice is otherwise entirely valid. 54 Particularly in light of the rapid and not always predictable turns in the evolution of sex discrimination law we are not able to conclude on the basis of the complaint or affidavits that a substantive claim of discrimination in violation of the fifth amendment was clearly foreclosed. The critical point is that the maternity leave policy lent itself to different interpretations and applications, including some that might be determined to be sex-discriminatory. 55 In Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 99 S.Ct. 2264, 60 L.Ed.2d 846 (1979), the Supreme Court held, pretermitting the question of immunity, that an implied cause of action exists under the fifth amendment's due process clause for discriminatory denial of employment opportunities based upon sex. Ms. Hanson's complaint can be read to allege such a discriminatory denial. The nexus between the existence of a discriminatory policy and the dismissal of a covered employee who inquires about the policy's application is not, we think, too tenuous to support a finding of causation. An employee dismissed for inquiring about a discriminatory policy may well have been injured by that policy and we disagree with the contrary conclusion of the district court. To rule otherwise would invite evasion of the fifth amendment through artful drafting of purposely ambiguous plans and terminations of employees for indiscretions in asking troublesome questions about the plans. Plaintiff should be allowed to develop, at least by discovery and possibly by trial, her claim based on the discriminatory nature of the policy and its causal relationship to her dismissal. 56