Workplace Prof Blog

Harpur: Aussie Wage-Setting Tool Found Discriminatory

Paul Harpur (Queensland) writes to tell us that an Australian disability wage-setting tool has been found discriminatory, and that the Australian government has agreed to pay 9,735 intellectual disabled workers entitlements which may reach $100 million AUD. Here's Paul's analysis:

An Australian government disability wage setting tool used to assess the wages of intellectually disabled workers who were employed in an Australian Disability Enterprise (a form of government subsidized employment) resulted in people with certain disabilities being under paid. 

The tool in question, the Business Services Wage Assessment Tool, was used to determine how much each worker should be paid and if they were entitled to wage increases.

It was alleged that the imposition of the condition or requirement that wages be fixed using the tool amounted to indirect disability discrimination within the meaning of s 6 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth).  

The tool fixed the amount of a wage by an assessment of competency and of productivity.  The assessment of competency was made by reference to eight elements.   Some of these competencies were irrelevant to the work actually undertaken by workers and the assessment processes relating to other competencies was flawed.  The assessment processes used abstract answers in an interview situation with intellectually disabled workers.  If workers did not provide a prescribed response they scored zero.

The Australian government accepted that this tool was discriminatory and has agreed to pay back  wages for thousands of workers.  The government introduced legislation to create a framework to repay wages in the Business Services Wage Assessment Tool Payment Scheme Act 2015 (Cth) (see also the Business Services Wage Assessment Tool Payment Scheme Bill 2014 (Cth) Explanatory Memorandum) and on 16 December 2016 the wage claims and discrimination claims by a class of 9,735 workers was approved by the Federal Court of Australia in Duval-Cowrie v Commonwealth of Australia (2016) FCA 1523.  The length and size of these under payments are substantial and are estimated to cost the Australian government $100 million AUD.

 

rb

Disability and the Law Writing Competition Open

If you have students writing on issues connected with disability and the law, please share with them this announcement (you can even post this flyer Download TJSL-CraneWritingCompetition-2017-d2) from our friend Susan Bisom-Rapp (Thomas Jefferson):

Thomas Jefferson School of law is pleased to announce the third Jameson Crane III Disability and the Law Writing Competition. Made possible by the generous gift of Thomas Jefferson School of Law alumnus Jameson Crane III, the Crane Writing Competition seeks to encourage outstanding student scholarship at the intersection of law and medicine, or law and the social sciences. The competition promotes an understanding of these topics, furthers the development of legal rights and protections, and improves the lives of those with disabilities.

The competition is open to currently enrolled law students, medical students, and doctoral candidates in related fields who attend an accredited graduate program of study in the United States. Submitted papers may be on any topic relating to disability law, including legal issues arising with respect to employment, government services and programs, public accommodations, education, higher education, housing, and health care.

Submissions will be judged anonymously by an independent panel of experts. The winner of the competition will receive a $1,500 cash prize and the Thomas Jefferson Law Review (TJLR) will consider the paper for publication under the TJLR’s editorial standards. Two second place winners will each receive a $1,000 cash prize.  Preference for these additional winners will be given to submissions from disciplines not represented by the grand prize winner.

All submissions must be submitted electronically to: [email protected]. All entries must be received by midnight, Pacific Standard Time, January 15, 2017. Winning submissions will be announced by April 15, 2017.  

For further details, please consult the competition webpage: http://www.tjsl.edu/cranewritingcompetition. Please distribute this information broadly so that we may reach as many eligible students as possible. Questions may be directed to Associate Dean and Professor Susan Bisom-Rapp, who will be coordinating the competition:[email protected].

MM

Assistance Animals in Australia

Speakers at a workshop in Queensland predict that employers Down Under could soon see a sharp increase in employee requests to bring service animals to the workplace. Per Disability assistance animals or not? Problems in policy and practice workshop: Summary and Scoping Discussion Paper, with Paul Harpur, Martie-Louise Verreynne, Nancy Pachana, Peter Billings and Brent Ritchie:

Employers of the one in every five Australians that have disabilities could face increasing demands to bring "assistance animals" such as dogs and miniature horses into the workplace, a workshop heard recently.

Speakers at the workshop on the issue at the Queensland Supreme Court on September 27 said that recent court rulings and an uncertain regulatory regime have made it difficult to determine or challenge whether a worker is entitled to bring such an animal to work.

Former disability discrimination commissioner Graeme Innes told the forum that four million Australians have disabilities that would give them protection under the Disability Discrimination Act.

Speakers at the workshop suggested while most of these people might not generally regard themselves as disabled, the existence of a medical condition usually enables such a person to assert they have a disability within the meaning of s4 of the Disability Discrimination Act.

They said it would be "relatively easy" for most of those people to claim an animal accompanying them was an assistance animal protected under section 9 of the Act, according to the chief investigator appointed by the workshop, Paul Harpur, a senior lecturer in the University of Queensland's TC Beirne School of Law.

A scoping paper circulated at the workshop – Disability animals or Not? Problems in policy and practice – said the Act defines assistance animals as those that are trained to help a person with a disability to alleviate the effects of their disability and to meet standards of hygiene and behaviour appropriate for an animal in a public place.

It said courts had interpreted the definition broadly to encompass "a self-trained dog that has not been accredited by a recognised disability training organisation".

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Estreicher Proposes "Safe Harbor" Rule to Promote Employment of High-Risk Applicants

Sam Estreicher (NYU) has posted on SSRN his article Achieving Antidiscrimination Objectives through 'Safe Harbor' Rules. Kudos to Sam proposing something designed to create job opportunities for the heretofore nearly unemployable; I hope this helps move the discussion forward. Here's Sam's abstract:

This paper urges government agencies responsible for enforcing antidiscrimination laws to use existing authority to promulgate “safe harbor” rules to encourage employment of individuals who are unlikely to obtain employment because of the risks to employers of an erroneous hiring, coupled with the improbability of enforcement. Such perennially frustrated job seekers include individuals aged 65 and over, individuals with obvious disabilities whose employment entails significant accommodation costs, and individuals convicted of serious crimes.

Without detracting from traditional education and enforcement activities, the responsible administrative agencies should promulgate “safe harbors” for employers willing to hire individuals from these categories of high employment risk. The safe harbor would be in the form of a regulation, promulgated after notice and opportunity for public comment, that individuals from these categories may be hired as probationary employees for a defined, say three-year, period, during which they may be discharged without cause or consequence for the employer. (Other provisions of the antidiscrimination laws would be unchanged). If such employees are retained beyond the probationary period, they would be treated the same as other employees in all respects, including the full force of the antidiscrimination laws.

The benefit of the safe-harbor approach is that it directly addresses the concerns that motivate the employer’s non-hiring decision. The employer is given a relatively cost-free opportunity to evaluate whether engaging the employee from the high-risk category will in fact entail the predicted risks or whether an employee’s actual performance will belie the predicted concern.

...

This is a preliminary look at the potential benefits of a “safe harbor” approach to antidiscrimination goals. Creation of carefully cabined regulatory safe harbors for hiring employees from high-risk categories has the potential to spur improved utilization of such employees with limited harm to the moral force of the antidiscrimination regime.

rb

New Book: Invisible Labor

Congratulations to Miriam Cherry (Saint Louis), Marion Crain (Washington University) and Winifred Poster (Washington University, Sociology) whose book Invisible Labor has just hit the shelves. The book is a collection of chapters by authors from, primarily, sociology and law, exploring types of labor that are unpaid and unseen. From the synopsis:

Across the world, workers labor without pay for the benefit of profitable businesses—and it's legal. Labor trends like outsourcing and technology hide some workers, and branding and employer mandates erase others. Invisible workers who remain under-protected by wage laws include retail workers who function as walking billboards and take payment in clothing discounts or prestige; waitstaff at “breastaurants” who conform their bodies to a business model; and inventory stockers at grocery stores who go hungry to complete their shifts. Invisible Labor gathers essays by prominent sociologists and legal scholars to illuminate how and why such labor has been hidden from view.

The collection brings together what previously seemed like disparate issues to show common threads among the ways labor can be invisible, and the breadth of contributions is impressive. I had the chance to attend a symposium set up by the editors to flesh out these ideas a couple of years ago and found the topics fascinating then. I can't wait to read the book!

MM

SEALS 2016 Call for Papers: New and Existing Voices in Labor and Employment Law

Friend of the blog and Southeastern Association of Law Schools Labor and Employment Law Workshop organizer extraordinaire Michael Green (Texas A & M) sends along this call for papers for the 2016 SEALS annual conference:

The Southeastern Association of Law Schools(SEALS) is pleased to host the fourth annual “New Voices in Labor and Employment Law” program during the 2016 SEALS Annual Meeting in Amelia Island, Florida. This year we have extended the program to also include “Existing Voices in Labor and Employment Law.” The purpose of this works-in-progress program is to give junior and existing scholars feedback on papers from senior scholars before the upcoming submission cycle.  We are seeking submissions from labor and employment law scholars with five or fewer years of full-time teaching experience (not counting the 2015-16 academic year) and will also consider drafts from existing labor and employment scholars regardless of experience.

Submissions should be drafts of papers relating to labor and employment law that will be near completion by the time of the SEALS meeting held August 3-9, 2016.  To be considered for participation in the program, please send an email to Professor Michael Z. Green, Texas A&M University School of Law, at [email protected] and [email protected] by 5:00 p.m. E.S.T., Monday, January 11, 2016. In your email, please include the title of your paper, a short description of the context (e.g., “Disparate Impact after Dukes”), and a full abstract. Full-time faculty members of SEALS member or affiliate member schools, who have been teaching labor and employment law courses for five or fewer years as of July 1, 2015, will be given a preference in the selection of those contacted to submit final papers but we hope that labor and employment scholars with even more experience will submit papers as well. 

To ensure enough time for adequate feedback, space will be limited to 6 participants; additional registrants will be placed on a waiting list and invited to participate on a space available basis. Those individuals accepted into the program must submit a complete draft by 5:00 p.m. E.S.T., Friday, June 10, 2016. Please submit your drafts electronically to the email addresses above. The draft should be accompanied by a cover letter with the author’s name, contact information, and confirmation that the submission meets the criteria in this call for papers.

Submissions are limited to a maximum 40,000 word limit (including footnotes). Papers can be committed for publication prior to their submission as long as they are not actually scheduled to be printed prior to August 9, 2016. Each professor may submit only one paper for consideration. No papers will be accepted after the deadline and the submission of an incomplete draft may limit participation in this workshop.  Paper commentators may include Professors Brad Areheart (Tennessee), Anthony Baldwin (Mercer), Richard Bales (Ohio Northern), Scott Bauries (Kentucky), Theresa Beiner (Arkansas-Little Rock), Miriam Cherry (St. Louis), Brian Clarke (Charlotte), Michael Green (Texas A&M), Wendy Greene (Samford), Stacy Hawkins (Rutgers Camden), Jeff Hirsch (North Carolina), Nancy Levit (Missouri-Kansas City), Natasha Martin (Seattle), Marcia McCormick (St. Louis), Angela Onwuachi-Willig (Iowa), Elizabeth Pendo (St. Louis), Nicole Porter (Toledo), Jessica Roberts (Houston), Veronica Root (Notre Dame), Ani Satz (Emory), Paul Secunda (Marquette), Kerri Stone (Florida International), Michael Waterstone (Loyola), and others to be determined. 

Please be aware that selected participants and commentators are responsible for their own travel and lodging expenses related to attending the SEALS Annual Meeting, including the SEALS registration fee. Any inquiries about the SEALS New and Existing Voices in Labor and Employment Law Program should be submitted to Professor Michael Green at the email above.

 SEALS is a great conference because it is not overly formal, and people are quite approachable. Also, like many workshops in the labor and employment community, the commentators are usually supportive and really engaged. I always leave with more energy than I had when I arrived. We'll keep you posted on other programming as it's set.

MM

DOJ’s Second Try: Avoiding the ADA’s Gender-Identity-Disorder Exclusion

            How will the Department of Justice (DOJ) defend against an Equal Protection Clause challenge to that part of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that excludes “gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments” from the statutory term “disability,”  42 U.S.C. § 12211(b)(1) (the “GID exclusion)?  When we last talked about Blatt v. Cabela’s Retail, Inc., No. 5:14-cv-04822-JFL (E.D. Pa., filed Aug. 15, 2014) —an employment discrimination lawsuit brought by a transgender plaintiff.—DOJ had asked the district judge to avoid the constitutional issue by deciding the plaintiff’s Title VII claim (discrimination because of gender identity) instead of her ADA claim. The district court didn’t buy it and asked DOJ to say more or intervene.

            So, a second try.  DOJ has a new constitutional-avoidance argument: According to “a growing body of scientific evidence,” gender dysphoria—the plaintiff’s alleged disability—is a gender identity disorder that does “result[ ] from physical impairments.” Therefore, the district court can (and must) read the ADA’s GID exclusion not to apply in this case.  The ADA’s definition of disability contemplates impairments as “physical” or “mental”.  42 U.S.C. § 12102(1)(A) (“a physical or mental impairment”). DOJ’s key move here is to read the phrase “resulting from physical impairments” in the GID exclusion to not cover “GIDs rooted in biology or physiology, even if the precise etiology is not yet definitively understood,” that is, a GID that “has a physical basis.” Citing various sources in support, including a recent literature review (Saraswat et al., 2015), DOJ concludes: “While no clear scientific consensus appears to exist regarding the specific origins of gender dysphoria (i.e., whether it can be traced to neurological, genetic, or hormonal sources), the current research increasingly indicates that gender dysphoria has physiological or biological roots.”

            In response, the defendant-employer agreed that the GID exclusion doesn’t cover gender dysphoria stemming from a physical impairment, but emphasized that the plaintiff hadn’t alleged that her gender dysphoria resulted from a physical impairment.  As a result, the defendant’s lawyers wrote, DOJ’s avoidance argument wasn’t “credible”.  The plaintiff’s amici—several NGOs that advocate for transgender people’s rights— agreed that DOJ’s position was, in its result, at least consistent with their view that, after the DSM-5, gender dysphoria isn’t a gender identity disorder at all, but a “new diagnosis.”  But if not, the amici added, and if DOJ’s view requires a plaintiff in any particular to prove that his or her gender dysphoria does actually result from a physical impairment, then the court can’t avoid the Equal Protection Clause challenge completely.  That’s because (1) only transgender plaintiffs would bear that burden of proof; (2) that burden would burn a lot of “attorney resources for discovery and the preparation of expert reports and requiring courts to delve into a thicket of medical evidence and opine on etiology, with the attendant risk of different courts reaching differing results in similar cases”; and (3) if the plaintiff couldn’t meet that burden, the court would then have to decide the constitutional issue.  The plaintiff’s lawyers agreed with this view.

    What about the plaintiff’s ADA claim based on perceived disability? First Amended Complaint ¶¶ 36, 53.  The ADA defines “disability” to include cases in which a person is “regarded as” disabled.  42 U.S.C. § 12102(1)(C).  Today, that’s defined to cover a person who suffers discrimination “because of an actual or perceived physical or mental impairment whether or not the impairment limits or is perceived to limit a major life activity,” id. § 12102(3)—the result of the ADA Amendments of 2008.  So, if the defendant’s alleged illegal conduct had occurred today, maybe DOJ would also say—to make avoidance work—that the GID exclusion doesn’t apply to “regarded-as” ADA claims.  (That is, not even when a defendant-employer treats a person adversely because it thinks (erroneously) that a person has a “gender identity disorder” caused by a physical impairment; or thinks (erroneously, in DOJ’s view) that a person has a “gender identity disorder” caused by a mental impairment; or thinks a person has a “gender identity disorder” but doesn’t know or care whether that condition has a mostly physical or mostly mental etiology.)  But the alleged illegal conduct in Blatt took place before the ADA amendments of 2008.  Back then, the Third Circuit had required that, for a regarded-as claim, the plaintiff’s perceived disability would, if true, count as an “impairment” under the ADA, see Rinehimer v. Cemcolift, Inc., 292 F.3d 375, 381 (3d. Cir. 2002).

    Maybe we’ll find out soon how DOJ’s second try at avoidance will fare.  Oral argument on the defendant’s partial motion in Blatt is scheduled for this Thursday (Dec. 10).

 

--- Sachin Pandya

Two views of past as prologue by Widiss, one on Griggs, and the other on the ADA

Deb Widiss (Indiana) has two recent articles that will be of interest to our blog readers. The first is Griggs at Midlife, 113 Mich. L. Rev. 992 (2005), reviewing Bob Belton's recent book, The Crusade for Equality in the Workplace. From the abstract: 

Griggs v. Duke Power, the Supreme Court case that held that policies that disproportionately harm minority employees can violate federal employment discrimination law even without evidence of “intentional” discrimination, recently turned forty. Griggs is generally celebrated as a landmark decision, but disparate impact’s current relevance (and its constitutionality) is hotly debated. Robert Belton’s The Crusade for Equality in the Workplace offers a rich and detailed history of the strategic choices that led to the plaintiffs’ victory in Griggs. This Review uses Belton’s history as a jumping off point to consider the contemporary importance of disparate impact in efforts to challenge employers’ use of criminal background screens. The Review also suggests that the failure to develop intersectional analysis — that is, an analysis of how sex and race may interact — in disparate impact doctrine risks obscuring key vectors of exclusion.

Belton’s book gives modern readers an inside look at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund’s litigation campaign in Griggs, and it does an excellent job showing how lawyers used disparate impact doctrine to dismantle test and educational requirements that could have excluded many black employees. The book, however, focuses almost exclusively on race discrimination cases. This Review explores the contemporaneous — and less successful — development of the doctrine in early sex discrimination cases. Generally, courts have not required employers to modify workplace structures that fail to accommodate caregiving responsibilities or pregnancy, despite their disparate impact on the basis of sex. Moreover, such policies often disproportionately harm women of color. By filling in this history, the Review offers a more nuanced assessment of disparate impact’s early years.

The Review then considers contemporary efforts to challenge employers’ use of criminal background screens, policies that likewise cause a disparate impact on the basis of both race and sex. It suggests that current litigation might be more successful if the intersectional approach were better developed, but it also highlights the importance of compliance work in achieving equal employment opportunity in the modern world. Although the EEOC has lost some high profile cases in this area, its guidance indicating that criminal background screens may cause an unlawful disparate impact has pushed employers to reconsider and refine their use of such screens.

The second expanded on Deb's other work on "shadow precedents," precedents that still seem to guide the courts even after Congress amends statutes to reverse the effects of those precedents: Still Kickin after All these Years: Sutton and Toyota as Shadow Precedents, 63 Drake L. Rev. 919 (2015). From that abstract:

Congress’s ability to override judicial opinions that interpret statutes is generally understood as an important aspect of maintaining legislative supremacy. In a series of articles, I have challenged the validity of this assumption by showing that courts often continue to rely on overridden precedents — what I have called shadow precedents. My earlier work explores instances in which it was unclear or debatable whether the override or the prior precedent should control. This article further documents such ambiguities, but its primary objective is to highlight examples of ongoing reliance on shadow precedents where it is unquestionably improper. It suggests, however, that citation of shadow precedents may often stem from information failure, including poor briefing by counsel, rather than courts’ willful disregard of legislative mandates.

The article, written for a symposium on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), examines implementation of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA). The ADAAA, a broadly bipartisan bill, was intended to supersede Supreme Court decisions that had set a very stringent standard for what impairments qualified as a disability. The ADAAA explicitly “rejected” the reasoning in these decisions; amended the ADA’s substantive provisions; and instructed courts to interpret the standard “in favor of broad coverage.” Many lower courts are properly implementing the revised standard, and the overall number of citations to the superseded decisions has dropped sharply. But this article identifies numerous post-ADAAA cases in which courts follow the old precedents for propositions that were undeniably superseded. Mistakes are particularly prevalent in cases alleging discrimination because one is “regarded as” having a disability. Even though the ADAAA was an unusually strong and clear override, it has failed to change fully the law on the ground.

The symposium mentioned in the abstract was published in the Drake Law Review and was an outgrowth of the AALS Employment Discrimination section panel at last year's annual meeting. It's a great symposium with pieces by Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Steven Befort (Minnesota), Ruth Colker (Ohio State), Arlene Kanter (Syracuse), and Nicole Porter (Toledo).

MM

Disability Law Student Writing Competition

 Friend of the blog Susan Bisom-Rapp (Thomas Jefferson) sends along exciting news of a new student writing competition:

Thomas Jefferson School of law is pleased to announce the second Jameson Crane III Disability and the Law Writing Competition. Made possible by the generous gift of Thomas Jefferson School of Law alumnus Jameson Crane III, the Crane Writing Competition seeks to encourage outstanding student scholarship at the intersection of law and medicine, or law and the social sciences. The competition promotes an understanding of these topics, furthers the development of legal rights and protections, and improves the lives of those with disabilities.

The competition is open to currently enrolled law students, medical students, and doctoral candidates in related fields who attend an accredited graduate program of study in the United States. Submitted papers may be on any topic relating to disability law, including legal issues arising with respect to employment, government services and programs, public accommodations, education, higher education, housing, and health care.

Submissions will be judged anonymously by an independent panel of experts. The winner of the competition will receive a $1,500 cash prize and the Thomas Jefferson Law Review (TJLR) will consider the paper for publication under the TJLR’s editorial standards. Two second place winners will each receive a $1,000 cash prize.  Preference for these additional winners will be given to submissions from disciplines not represented by the grand prize winner.

All submissions must be submitted electronically to: [email protected]. All entries must be received by midnight, Pacific Standard Time, January 15, 2016. Winning submissions will be announced by April 15, 2016.  

For further details, please consult the competition webpage: http://www.tjsl.edu/cranewritingcompetition. Please distribute this information broadly so that we may reach as many eligible students as possible. Questions may be directed to Professor Susan Bisom-Rapp, who will be coordinating the competition: [email protected].

What a great opportunity!

MM

DOJ Tries to Avoid Equal Protection Ruling on ADA Exception for Gender Identity Disorders

    The US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the EEOC read Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination to cover employment discrimination based on gender identity, including transgender status.  Now, DOJ’s Civil Division is trying to use its reading of Title VII to avoid a ruling in an Equal Protection Clause challenge to the part of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that excludes “transsexualism” and “gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments” from the statutory term “disability.”  42 U.S.C. § 12111(b)(1). 

            In Blatt v. Cabela’s Retail, Inc., No. 5:14-cv-04822-JFL (E.D. Pa., filed Aug. 15, 2014), the plaintiff asserts Title VII and ADA claims against her former employer (Cabela).  Here’s a simplified version of the alleged facts: The plaintiff alleged that in 2005, she was diagnosed with “Gender Dysphoria, also known as Gender Identity Disorder, a medical condition in which a person’s gender identity does not match his or her anatomical sex at birth” and that falls within the general definition of “disability” under the ADA.  First Am. Compl. ¶ 10.  Thereafter, the plaintiff “changed her name” from James to Kate Lynn and changed her physical appearance to conform to her female gender identity.  Id. ¶ 11.  But at her job, her employer allegedly refused her request for a “Kate Lynn” name tag, id. ¶ 16, and, because of that request, forced her to wear a “James” nametag and use only the men’s restroom until her “her name and gender marker were legally changed.” Id. ¶¶ 18-19.  Thereafter, plaintiff alleged that she suffered insults, lost promotions, and received disfavored shifts in part to keep her away from customers.  When plaintiff finally changed her name legally, she got her “Kate Lynn” nametag, albeit only after repeated complaining, but was only permitted to use the unisex “family” bathroom located in front of the defendant’s store.  Kate Lynn was later fired for an allegedly pretextual reason.

            In a partial motion to dismiss, defendant-employer Cabela argued that the ADA claims must be dismissed, mostly because Congress excluded the plaintiff’s alleged disability-- Gender Dysphoria – from ADA protection. 42 U.S.C. § 12111(b)(1).  In response, Kate Lynn’s lawyers read the ADA exceptions for gender identity disorder and transsexualism (the “GID exclusion”) as equal to “exclusions for transgender people,” thereby creating “a transgender classification. The fact that not all transgender people have a GID diagnosis does not affect the conclusion that all people excluded by the ADA's GID exclusion are transgender.”  In turn, they’ve asked the court to declare the ADA’s GID exclusion to violate the Equal Protection Clause (as read into the Fifth Amendment, Bolling v. Shape, 347 U.S. 497 (1954)), largely because (1) laws with transgender classifications deserve heightened scrutiny because transgender people are “a historically and politically marginalized class of people based on an immutable characteristic, irrelevant to their ability to contribute to society”; and (2) the Senate proponents of the GID exclusion—including former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms—were really motivated by their moral disapproval of transgender people, and that doesn’t count as a sufficient government interest.

            Thus far, nobody seems to want to try and argue that the ADA’s GID exclusion satisfies the Equal Protection Clause.  In its reply brief, dated Feb. 17, 2015, defendant-employer Cabela’s lawyers wrote: “Cabela’s takes no position regarding the constitutionality of the ADA and defers to the United States Attorney General’s position regarding the constitutionality of the federal statute.”  They then pressed their motion to dismiss in part by assuming the GID exclusion’s constitutionality. 

    In turn, in a statement, filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 517, on July 21, 2015, the DOJ has asked the court to try to avoid the issue by deciding the plaintiff’s Title VII claims first:

[T]he [alleged] facts giving rise to Plaintiff’s Title VII and ADA claims substantially overlap. Moreover, the relief Plaintiff seeks under Title VII and the ADA is identical.  Thus, the outcome of Plaintiff’s Title VII claims could render superfluous her ADA claims and, therefore, would obviate the need to resolve the constitutional challenge to the GID Exclusion. That approach is particularly appropriate given that discrimination because of gender identity, including transgender status, constitutes sex discrimination prohibited by Title VII.

Statement of Interest of the Unites States at 2 (citations and footnote omitted).  In support of that last sentence, DOJ cited, among other things, its own reading to that effect. 

    This is hardly the first time that DOJ's Civil Division has tried to get a court to avoid a constitutional ruling on a federal statutory provision—after all, absent exceptional circumstances, its general charge is to defend federal statutes against constitutional attack.  On the other hand, the DOJ’s reasoning is a little odd here.  The general directive to avoid deciding constitutional questions usually applies as a canon of statutory construction, not as a directive to judges as to when and how they decided claims or defenses that entail some issue of constitutional law.  Does this reasoning mean that, in a lawsuit asserting multiple claims for the same relief, courts generally should avoid deciding section 1983 claims against employers (that entail constitutional questions) until after they figure out whether the non-constitutional damages claims have merit? Besides, this seems to lead to some serious inefficiency.  In cases with multiple and independent legal grounds for the same relief, should district judges invariably avoid so identifying such grounds if they are constitutional?  Moreover, suppose the defendant-employer here moves for summary judgment on the Title VII claims and loses the motion. If there is a non-zero probability that the ADA’s GID exclusion is constitutional and suffices as a reason to dismiss the plaintiff’s ADA claims, why not decide that first, as opposing to going to trial and making the parties present evidence on, and making a jury decide, the material issues of fact for both the ADA and Title VII claims?  Puzzling.

 

--Sachin Pandya

Tenth Annual Colloquium Registration Open

Deborah Widiss (Indiana) has good news to share:

The annual Colloquium on Scholarship in Employment and Labor Law (COSELL) will be held at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Sept. 11-12, 2015, in Bloomington, Indiana. This conference, now in its tenth year, brings together labor and employment law professors from across the country. It offers participants the opportunity to present works-in-progress to a friendly and knowledgeable audience.

 Registration is now open at: http://www.law.indiana.edu/cosell.

 If you’re planning to come, please go ahead and register now; you can fill in details about the project you will present later in the summer.

 The conference is free, and we will provide all meals during the conference. Travel & hotel information is found on the website.

 Please feel free to contact any of us with questions.

 We will look forward to hosting you in Bloomington!

• Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt ([email protected])
• Jamie Prenkert ([email protected])
• Victor D. Quintanilla ([email protected])
• Deborah Widiss ([email protected])

MM

Young v. UPS: SCOTUS Interprets the PDA

The Supreme Court issued an opinion today in Young v. UPS, a case concerning whether a pregnant woman denied a light duty accommodation under a policy that accommodated injuries caused on the job, but did not accommodate injuries caused off the job, violated Title VII as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

The decision, written by Justice Breyer, and joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan, is fairly complicated, and it will take some time to make sense of. Justice Alito concurred, and Justice Scalia dissented, joined by Justice Thomas and Justice Kennedy. Justice Kennedy also wrote a separate dissent. 

Because I am still working through it, I'll reproduce part of the syllabus here. Note that the Court did not adopt the position urged by any of the parties, but instead adopted a middle ground, modifying the McDonnell Douglas proof structure to make something entirely new. Justice Scalia's dissent argues that this move will merge disparate treatment with disparate impact. I think that may be right, but I disagree that it's a bad thing.

Held: 1. An individual pregnant worker who seeks to show disparate treatment through indirect evidence may do so through application of the McDonnell Douglas framework. Pp. 10–23. (a) The parties’ interpretations of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act’s second clause are unpersuasive. Pp. 12–20. (i) Young claims that as long as “an employer accommodates only a subset of workers with disabling conditions,” “pregnant workers who are similar in the ability to work [must] receive the same treatment even if still other nonpregnant workers do not receive accommodations.” Brief for Petitioner 28. Her reading proves too much. The Court doubts that Congress intended to grant pregnant workers an unconditional “most-favored-nation” status, such that employers who provide one or two workers with an accommodation must provide similar accommodations to all pregnant workers, irrespective of any other criteria. After all, the second clause of the Act, when referring to nonpregnant persons with similar disabilities, uses the open-ended term “other persons.” It does not say that the employer must treat pregnant employees the “same” as “any other persons” who are similar in their ability or inability to work, nor does it specify the particular “other persons” Congress had in mind as appropriate comparators for pregnant workers. Moreover, disparate treatment law normally allows an employer to implement policies that are not intended to harm members of a protected class, even if their implementation sometimes harms those members, as long as the employer has a legitimate, nondiscriminatory, nonpretextual reason for doing so. See, e.g., Burdine, supra, at 252–258. There is no reason to think Congress intended its language in the Pregnancy Discrimination Act to deviate from that approach. Pp. 12–14.

(ii) The Solicitor General argues that the Court should give special, if not controlling, weight to a 2014 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guideline concerning the application of Title VII and the ADA to pregnant employees. But that guideline lacks the timing, “consistency,” and “thoroughness” of “consideration” necessary to “give it power to persuade.” Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134, 140. The guideline was promulgated after certiorari was granted here; it takes a position on which previous EEOC guidelines were silent; it is inconsistent with positions long advocated by the Government; and the EEOC does not explain the basis for its latest guidance. Pp. 14–17.

(iii) UPS claims that the Act’s second clause simply defines sex discrimination to include pregnancy discrimination. But that cannot be right, as the first clause of the Act accomplishes that objective. Reading the Act’s second clause as UPS proposes would thus render the first clause superfluous. It would also fail to carry out a key congressional objective in passing the Act. The Act was intended to overturn the holding and the reasoning of General Elec. Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125, which upheld against a Title VII challenge a company plan that provided nonoccupational sickness and accident benefits to all employees but did not provide disability-benefit payments for any absence due to pregnancy. Pp. 17–20.

(b) An individual pregnant worker who seeks to show disparate treatment may make out a prima facie case under the McDonnell Douglas framework by showing that she belongs to the protected class, that she sought accommodation, that the employer did not accommodate her, and that the employer did accommodate others “similar in their ability or inability to work.” The employer may then seek to justify its refusal to accommodate the plaintiff by relying on “legitimate, nondiscriminatory” reasons for denying accommodation.

That reason normally cannot consist simply of a claim that it is more expensive or less convenient to add pregnant women to the category of those whom the employer accommodates. If the employer offers a “legitimate, nondiscriminatory” reason, the plaintiff may show that it is in fact pretextual. The plaintiff may reach a jury on this issue by providing sufficient evidence that the employer’s policies impose a significant burden on pregnant workers, and that the employer’s “legitimate, nondiscriminatory” reasons are not sufficiently strong to justify the burden, but rather—when considered along with the burden imposed—give rise to an inference of intentional discrimination.

The plaintiff can create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether a significant burden exists by providing evidence that the employer accommodates a large percentage of nonpregnant workers while failing to accommodate a large percentage of pregnant workers. This approach is consistent with the longstanding rule that a plaintiff can use circumstantial proof to rebut an employer’s apparently legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons, see Burdine, supra, at 255, n. 10, and with Congress’ intent to overrule Gilbert. Pp. 20–23.

2. Under this interpretation of the Act, the Fourth Circuit’s judgment must be vacated. Summary judgment is appropriate when there is “no genuine dispute as to any material fact.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(a). The record here shows that Young created a genuine dispute as to whether UPS provided more favorable treatment to at least some employees whose situation cannot reasonably be distinguished from hers. It is left to the Fourth Circuit to determine on remand whether Young also created a genuine issue of material fact as to whether UPS’ reasons for having treated Young less favorably than these other nonpregnant employees were pretextual. Pp. 23–24.

MM

Oral Argument in Young v. UPS

The Court heard oral argument in Young v. UPS (argued in part by Sam Bagenstos (Michigan)) this morning, and the transcript is now available on the Court's website. I've read it and am not entirely sure what to conclude. One analogy made by Justice Scalia, and used throughout the argument was "most favored nation" status. Does the second clause in the PDA, which requires that pregnant workers be treated the same as other workers similar in their ability or inability to work, require that pregnant workers be treated the same as the best treated of those others? Or can they be treated as least favored nations -- as long as there is a group of workers similar in their ability or inability to work that is treated poorly, pregnant workers can be treated poorly too? The policy at issue allowed light duty accommodations for workers injured on the job, but required those injured off the job who couldn't lift heavy things to take unpaid leave. So there was a distinction within the group of workers similar in their ability or inability to work that was not related to pregnancy. At the same time, the policy weeded out all pregnancy limitations. Moreover, there were two exceptions to the off-the-job part. If the off-the-job injury resulted in a disability under the ADA, or a DOT decertification, the injury was accommodated.

There was a significant amount of back and forth about what that second clause means, since it's not a full fledged accommodation requirement like the religious accommodations in Title VII or the accommodation requirement of the ADA. At the same time, it has to mean something more than simply that discrimination on the basis of pregnancy is discrimination on the basis of sex, since that's what the first clause says. And clearly the effect of the PDA on the Court's decision in General Electric Co. v. Gilbert is still under debate. I'm making no predictions, but I'd be interested in your insights in the comments.

MM

AALS workplace sections joint newsletter

 Thanks to Monique Lillard (Idaho), chair of the AALS Labor Relations and Employment section and Natasha Martin (Seattle), chair of the AALS Employment Discrimination section for sending along the joint newsletter of the two sections for posting. Download it while it's hot:  Download Joint Newsletter for AALS Sections

MM

SEALS call for participants

The Southeastern Association of Law Schools holds its annual meeting every summer at the end of July/beginning of August, and planning for next year's programming has started. For the past several years, a workshop for labor and employment law has taken place over several of the days. Michael Green (Texas A & M) is helping to organize the workshop for next summer. If you are interested in participating, feel free to get in touch with him: [email protected]. Some suggestions already made include panels or discussion groups on whistleblowing, joint employer issues, termination for off-duty conduct (including recent NFL scandals), disability and UPS v. Young, and a junior scholars workshop.

One additional piece of programming already proposed is a discussion group on attractiveness issues in Employment Discrimination cases. Wendy Greene is helping to organize it, so get in touch with her if you are interested in participating on that topic.

And regardless of whether you get in touch with Michael or Wendy, you should think about proposing programming for the annual meeting if you are at all interested and regardless of the topic. The meeting is surprisingly (because of the lovely environs) substantive, and the environment is very relaxed and is designed to be egalitarian.  Here are the details:

The SEALS website www.sealslawschools.org is accepting proposals for panels or discussion groups for the 2015 meeting which will be held at the Boca Raton Resort & Club http://www.bocaresort.com/  Boca Raton, Florida, from July 27 to Aug. 2.  You can submit a proposal at any time.  However, proposals submitted prior to October 31st are more likely to be accepted.

This document explains how to navigate SEALS, explains the kinds of programs usually offered, and lays out the rules for composition of the different kinds of programming: Download Navigating submission. The most important things the Executive Director emphasizes are these:  First, SEALS strives to be both open and democratic.  As a result, any faculty member at a SEALS member or affiliate school is free to submit a proposal for a panel or discussion group.  In other words, there are no "section chairs" or "insiders" who control the submissions in particular subject areas.  If you wish to do a program on a particular topic, just organize your panelists or discussion group members and submit it through the SEALS website.  There are a few restrictions on the composition of panels (e.g., panels must include a sufficient number of faculty from member schools, and all panels and discussion groups should strive for inclusivity).  Second, there are no "age" or "seniority" restrictions on organizers.  As a result, newer faculty are also free to submit proposals.  Third, if you wish to submit a proposal, but don't know how to reach others who may have an interest in participating in that topic, let Russ Weaver know and he will try to connect you with other scholars in your area.

MM

Disability and the Law Writing Competition

My TJSL colleague Susan Bisom-Rapp would like to share the following about a new writing competition:

 

Thomas Jefferson School of law is pleased to announce the inaugural Jameson Crane III Disability and the Law Writing Competition. Made possible by the generous gift of Thomas Jefferson School of Law alumnus Jameson Crane III, the Crane Writing Competition seeks to encourage outstanding student scholarship at the intersection of law and medicine, or law and the social sciences. The competition promotes an understanding of these topics, furthers the development of legal rights and protections, and improves the lives of those with disabilities.

The competition is open to currently enrolled law students, medical students, and doctoral candidates in related fields who attend an accredited graduate program of study in the United States. Submitted papers may be on any topic relating to disability law, including legal issues arising with respect to employment, government services and programs, public accommodations, education, higher education, housing, and health care.

Submissions will be judged anonymously by an independent panel of experts. The winner of the competition will receive a $1,500 cash prize and the Thomas Jefferson Law Review (TJLR) will consider the paper for publication under the TJLR’s editorial standards. Two second place winners will each receive a $1,000 cash prize.  Preference for these additional winners will be given to submissions from disciplines not represented by the grand prize winner.

All submissions must be submitted electronically to: [email protected]. All entries must be received by midnight, Pacific Standard Time, January 15, 2015. Winning submissions will be announced by April 15, 2015.  

For further details, please consult the competition webpage: http://www.tjsl.edu/cranewritingcompetition. Please distribute this information broadly so that we may reach as many eligible students as possible. Questions may be directed to Professor Susan Bisom-Rapp, who will be coordinating the competition: [email protected]

 

RKL

Areheart & Stein on the Disability/Employability Divide

Brad Areheart (Tennessee) and Michael Stein (William & Mary) have posted a new article on SSRN: The Disability/Employability Divide: Bottlenecks to Equal Opportunity, forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review. From the abstract:

Joseph Fishkin’s new book, Bottlenecks, reinvigorates the concept of equal opportunity by simultaneously engaging with its complications and attempting to simplify its ambitions. Fishkin describes bottlenecks as narrow spaces in the opportunity structure through which people must pass if they hope to reach a range of opportunities on the other side. A significant component of the American opportunity structure that is largely unexplored by Bottlenecks relates to people with disabilities. This review applies Fishkin’s theory to explore how disability law and its regulations create and perpetuate bottlenecks that keep people with disabilities from a greater degree of human flourishing. In particular, the opportunity structure of disability policy features a conceptual employability/disability divide that ultimately prevents people with disabilities from passing into a wider array of opportunities. Fishkin’s book, in concert with this review, prompts new and inventive ways of reimagining and implementing structural solutions to these bottlenecks.

Looks like a good read.

MM

Ninth Annual Colloquium Registration

Just a friendly reminder from conference organizers, Melissa Hart and Scott Moss at the University of Colorado Law School, that the deadline to register to attend, and/or present a paper at, the 9^th Annual Labor and Employment Scholars Colloquium is Friday, August 1, 2014.  The Colloquium is scheduled in Boulder between September 11-13, 2014.

 You can register and submit a paper proposal at this link:

 https//cuboulder.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_ehPf2AWQ7ihhqfz.

 Please direct any questions to Melissa Hart ([email protected]) or Scott Moss ([email protected]).

MM

Transnational Perspectives in Equality

The AALS is hosting a Workshop June 22-24 in Washington DC on Transnational Perspectives on Equality Law. The full program is here, and this is a summary:

Workshop on Transnational Perspectives on Equality Law

 

Sunday, June 22 - Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The Renaissance Mayflower Hotel

Washington, DC

 

REGISTER HERE!

 

Antidiscrimination law is an American invention that has spread all around the world.  During the American civil rights movement of the 1960s, antidiscrimination law promised radical social transformations towards equality for women and minorities in the workplace, in politics, and in education.  But recent developments in Equal Protection and Title VII doctrine have paralyzed this trajectory.  Meanwhile, the last decade has seen the unprecedented globalization of antidiscrimination law, as well as its expansion and alternative development outside the United States, catalyzed largely by the European Union's two directives in 2000, on race equality and on equal treatment in employment.  Over the last few years, a new body of equality law and policy experimentation has emerged not only in the EU and in European countries, but also in South Africa, Canada, Latin America, and Asia. There is a range of public policies adopted to mitigate the disadvantages of vulnerable groups such as racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, women, the disabled, the elderly, and the poor, constituting an "equality law" that goes beyond norms prohibiting discrimination.  

 

At the same time, antidiscrimination law in the United States seems to be changing. U.S. Supreme Court decisions over the last several years (Ricci v. DeStefano, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, Wal-Mart v. Dukes, and Shelby County v. Holder) have signaled the end of antidiscrimination law as envisioned by the civil rights movement in the United States.  In response, there is growing scholarly interest in finding new approaches to the persistent problem of structural inequality.  Comparative reflection is a productive tool, particularly when energy and optimism surrounds the trajectory of antidiscrimination law and equality policy outside of the United States.  Now that there is over a decade's worth of new antidiscrimination activity in the EU countries following the 2000 equality directives, the time is ripe for scholarly reflection and evaluation of these developments. From an intellectual, practical, and strategic perspective, antidiscrimination scholars in the United States can no longer ignore developments in antidiscrimination law in other countries.

 

While a growing number of American legal scholars are lamenting the limits of antidiscrimination law, the recent growth of this body of law outside of the United States has largely gone unnoticed. The central purpose of this mid-year meeting is to widen the comparative lens on U.S. equality law - its failures, its achievements, and its potential - across a variety of subject areas.  The meeting will provide a unique and much-needed opportunity to bring together scholars from various fields - constitutional law, employment discrimination law, comparative law, comparative constitutional law, election law, education law - to deepen and enrich the scholarship and teaching of equality.   The meeting will also provide a unique opportunity for U.S. scholars to interact with a wide, varied, and stimulating group of antidiscrimination scholars working around the world.

 

Additionally, law schools are increasingly making their curricula more transnational and comparative.  This conference will assist teachers in integrating comparative perspectives to illuminate constitutional law, employment discrimination law, employment law, and other traditional subjects.

 

This Workshop will explore a number of critical questions including what is at stake in looking comparatively when doing equality law; how affirmative action is understood in other legal systems; understanding disparate impact, accommodation, and positive rights.  There will be discussions of religion, profiling, and equality and social movements.  Transnational perspectives on equality law will be a greater component of antidiscrimination scholarship going forward. This meeting should not be missed.

 

AALS Planning Committee for 2014 AALS Workshop on Transnational Perspectives for Equality Law

• Timothy A. Canova, Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center

• Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Duke University School of Law, Chair

• Richard T. Ford, Stanford Law School

• Reva B. Siegel, Yale Law School

• Julie C. Suk, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Yeshiva University

 The program has a great lineup. Register by June 4 to get the early bird rate.

MM

Registration Open for the 9th Annual Colloquium on Labor and Employment Law at U. of Colorado

From conference organizers Scott Moss and Melissa Hart, at the University of Colorado Law school comes word that registration is open for the Ninth Annual Colloquium on Labor and Employment Law Scholarship. The dates will be September 11th to the 13th in Boulder. 

As many of you already know, this is a terrific opportunity to get to know colleagues in an informal setting and exchange ideas as we discuss works-in-progress. Past participants likely would agree that the friendly, low-key atmosphere and productive sessions, as well as the chance to socialize with our colleagues, make this gathering especially fun and valuable.

The Colloquium will follow the familiar format. We will workshop papers all day Friday through Saturday afternoon. Exact times TBD; check the event webpage for updates as the Colloquium approaches.

To register, click here.

MM