AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen, No. 07-543; U.S. Supreme Court; opinion by Souter, J.; concurrence by Stevens, J.; dissent by Ginsburg, J.; decided May 18, 2009. On certiorari to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Petitioner companies (collectively, AT&T) long based pension calculations on a seniority system that relied on years of service minus uncredited leave time, giving less retirement credit for pregnancy absences than for medical leave generally. In response to the ruling in General Elec. Co. v. Gilbert , 429 U.S. 125, that such differential treatment of pregnancy leave was not sex-based discrimination prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress added the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) to Title VII in 1978 to make it “clear that it is discriminatory to treat pregnancy-related conditions less favorably than other medical conditions,” Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. EEOC , 462 U.S. 669. On the PDA’s effective date, AT&T replaced its old plan with the Anticipated Disability Plan, which provided the same service credit for pregnancy leave as for other disabilities prospectively, but did not make any retroactive adjustments for the pre-PDA personnel policies. Each of the individual respondents therefore received less service credit for her pre-PDA pregnancy leave than she would have for general disability leave, resulting in a reduction in her total employment term and, consequently, smaller AT&T pensions. They, along with their union, also a respondent, filed Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges alleging discrimination based on sex and pregnancy in violation of Title VII. The EEOC issued each respondent (collectively, Hulteen) a determination letter finding reasonable cause to believe AT&T had discriminated and a right-to-sue letter. Hulteen filed suit in the District Court, which held itself bound by a Ninth Circuit precedent finding a Title VII violation where post-PDA retirement eligibility calculations incorporated pre-PDA accrual rules that differentiated based on pregnancy. The Circuit affirmed.
