Walmart successfully convinced the Seventh Circuit Tuesday not to resuscitate a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suit accusing the retail giant of violating federal law by allowing light-duty work for employees injured on the job, but not pregnant employees.
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The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, suing on behalf of female employees at a Walmart distribution center in Wisconsin, didn’t effectively prove that any non-pregnant workers who were similar to pregnant women in their ability or inability to work, including those injured outside of the workplace, were accommodated with light duty, the court said.
The EEOC was incorrect in thinking that the retailer needed to specifically outline why pregnancy was excluded under its temporary alternate duty policy, not just why the policy was limited to those hurt while working, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said.
According to Walmart, the policy only included workers injured on the job to help reduce its costs and exposure under state workers’ compensation law and to build employee morale. That’s enough under the precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Young v. United Parcel Service Inc. for assessing pregnancy accommodation claims, Judge David F. Hamilton stated.
Judge Hamilton rejected the EEOC’s argument that employers must meet a heightened burden of production at step two of the modified proof scheme laid out in Young.
Young expressly stated that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act doesn’t give pregnancy “most-favored nation status” in the workplace, the judge noted.
The policy also excluded all other employees who weren’t hurt on the job but were limited in their ability to do physical work tasks, Hamilton said. That wasn’t true in Young, which was the reason why the Supreme Court vacated summary judgment for the employer in that case, Hamilton claimed.
Without direct evidence that pregnant workers were treated unfavorably compared to any workers similar in their ability or inability to work, the EEOC failed to meet its burden at step three of Young’s proof scheme, the Seventh Circuit said.
“From Walmart’s standpoint, it had chosen for sound reasons to offer a benefit to a certain category of workers, those injured on the job, without intending to discriminate against anyone else with physical limitations, whether caused by off-the-job injuries, illness, pregnancy or anything else, to whom its reasons did not apply,” Judge Hamilton wrote for the panel.
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