Nashville Gas Co. v. Satty

Citation434 U.S. 136
Decision Date06 December 1977
Docket NumberNo. 76-536,76-536
PartiesNashville Gas Co. v. Satty
CourtUnited States Supreme Court
Syllabus

Petitioner employer requires a pregnant employee to take leave of absence. While on such leave the employee receives no sick pay, such as is paid for nonoccupational disabilities other than pregnancy. She also loses all accumulated job seniority, such as is retained on leaves for other nonoccupational disabilities, with the result that although petitioner will attempt to provide her with temporary work on her return, she will be employed in a permanent position only if no currently employed employee also applies for the position. In respondent employee's action challenging those policies, the District Court held that they violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Held:

1. Petitioner's policy of denying employees returning from pregnancy leave their accumulated seniority acts both to deprive them "of employment opportunities" and to "adversely affect [their] status as an employee" because of their sex in violation of § 703(a)(2) of Title VII. Pp. 139-143.

(a) While petitioner's seniority policy is facially neutral in that both male and female employees retain accumulated seniority while on leave for nonoccupational disabilities other than pregnancy, whereas seniority is divested if the employee takes a leave for any other reason, including pregnancy, its discriminatory effect causes it to run afoul of § 703(a)(2). Pp. 140-141.

(b) 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. While Title VII does not require that greater economic benefits be paid to one sex or the other because of their different roles, this does not allow § 703(a)(2) to be read so as to permit an employer to burden female employees in such a way as to deprive them of employment opportunities because of their different roles. General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125, 97 S.Ct. 401, 50 L.Ed.2d 343, distinguished. P. 141-142.

(c) There is no proof of any business necessity justifying the adoption of the seniority policy with respect to pregnancy leave in this case. P. 143 2. Petitioner's policy of not awarding sick-leave pay to pregnant employees is not a per se violation of Title VII, but the facial neutrality of the policy does not end the analysis if it can be shown that exclusion of pregnancy from the compensation conditions is a mere "pretex[t] designed to effect an invidious discrimination against the members of one sex or the other." Gilbert, supra, at 136, 97 S.Ct. at 408. Hence, absent any showing that the decisions below were based on a finding that there was a pretext, the case will be remanded to determine whether respondent preserved the right to proceed further on such theory. Pp. 143-146.

522 F.2d 850, affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded.

Charles K. Wray, Nashville, Tenn., for petitioner.

Robert W. Weismueller, Jr., Nashville, Tenn., for respondent.

Mr. Justice REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner requires pregnant employees to take a formal leave of absence. The employee does not receive sick pay while on pregnancy leave. She also loses all accumulated job seniority; as a result, while petitioner attempts to provide the employee with temporary work upon her return, she will be employed in a permanent job position only if no employee presently working for petitioner also applies for the position. The United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee held that these policies violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. (1970 ed. and Supp. V). 384 F.Supp. 765 (1974). The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. 522 F.2d 850 (1975). We granted certiorari 429 U.S. 1071, 97 S.Ct. 806, 50 L.Ed.2d 788, to decide, in light of our opinion last Term in General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125, 97 S.Ct. 401, 50 L.Ed.2d 343 (1976), whether the lower courts properly applied Title VII to petitioner's policies respecting pregnancy.

Two separate policies are at issue in this case. The first is petitioner's practice of giving sick pay to employees disabled by reason of nonoccupational sickness or injury but not to those disabled by pregnancy. The second is petitioner's practice of denying accumulated seniority to female employees returning to work following disability caused by childbirth.1 We shall discuss them in reversed order.

I

Petitioner requires an employee who is about to give birth to take a pregnancy leave of indeterminate length. Such an employee does not accumulate seniority while absent, but instead actually loses any job seniority accrued before the leave commenced. Petitioner will not hold the employee's job open for her awaiting her return from pregnancy leave. An employee who wishes to return to work from such leave will be placed in any open position for which she is qualified and for which no individual currently employed is bidding; before such time as a permanent position becomes available, the company attempts to find temporary work for the employee. If and when the employee acquires a permanent position, she regains previously accumulated seniority for purposes of pension, vacation, and the like, but does not regain it for the purpose of bidding on future job openings.

Respondent began work for petitioner on March 24, 1969, as a clerk in its Customer Accounting Department. She commenced maternity leave on December 29, 1972, and gave birth to her child on January 23, 1973. Seven weeks later she sought re-employment with petitioner. The position that she had previously held had been eliminated as a result of bona fide cutbacks in her department. Temporary employment was found for her at a lower salary than she had earned prior to taking leave. While holding this temporary employment, respondent unsuccessfully applied for three permanent positions with petitioner. Each position was awarded to another employee who had begun to work for petitioner before respondent had returned from leave; if respondent had been credited with the seniority that she had accumulated prior to leave, she would have been awarded any of the positions for which she applied. After the temporary assignment was completed, respondent requested, "due to lack of work and job openings," that petitioner change her status from maternity leave to termination in order that she could draw unemployment compensation.

We conclude that petitioner's policy of denying accumulated seniority to female employees returning from pregnancy leave violates § 703(a)(2) of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(2) (1970 ed., Supp. V). That section declares it to be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to

"limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee because of such individual's . . . sex . . .."

On its face, petitioner's seniority policy appears to be neutral in its treatment of male and female employees.2 If an employee is forced to take a leave of absence from his or her job because of disease or any disability other than pregnancy, the employee, whether male or female, retains accumulated seniority and, indeed, continues to accrue seniority while on leave.3 If the employee takes a leave of absence for any other reason, including pregnancy, accumulated seniority is divested. 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. "Pregnancy is, of course, confined to women, but it is in other ways significantly different from the typical covered disease or disability." Gilbert, 429 U.S., at 136, 97 S.Ct., at 408.

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). Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 431, 91 S.Ct. 849, 854, 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." It is apparent from the previous recitation of the events which occurred following respondent's return from pregnancy leave that petitioner's policy denied her specific employment opportunities that she otherwise would have obtained. Even if she had ultimately been able to regain a permanent position with petitioner, she would have felt the effects of a lower seniority level, with its attendant relegation to less desirable and lower paying jobs, for the remainder of her career with petitioner.

In Gilbert, supra, there was no showing that General Electric's policy of compensating for all non-job-related disabilities except pregnancy favored men over women. No evidence was produced to suggest that men received more benefits from General Electric's disability insurance fund than did women; both men and women were subject generally to the disabilities covered and presumably drew similar amounts from the insurance fund. We therefore upheld the plan under Title VII.

"As there is no proof that the package is in fact worth more to men than to women, it is impossible to find any gender-based discriminatory effect in this scheme simply because women disabled as a result of pregnancy do not receive benefits; that is to say, gender-based discrimination does not result simply because an employer's disability-benefits plan is less than all-inclusive. For all that appears, pregnancy-related disabilities constitute an additional risk, unique to women, and the failure to compensate them for this risk does...

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