The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), proposed federal legislation that would impose an affirmative obligation on an employer to reasonably accommodate a pregnant worker absent a showing of undue hardship, was recently reintroduced in the U.S. Congress.
While it is highly unlikely that the PWFA will be enacted at any time in the near future, its introduction raises the question of how the lower federal courts have ruled on an employer’s duty under current law to reasonably accommodate pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions in the four years since the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 ruling in Young v. UPS. In Young, the Court set the standard that a plaintiff must prove to establish a failure to accommodate claim under the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA).
Our research shows that since Young was decided, the lower federal courts have been inconsistent in how they apply the Supreme Court’s holding, continuing to create uncertainty for employers as to exactly what is their pregnancy accommodation obligation.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.