By Daniel Carrillo Gunning, Wilson Turner Kosmo LLP, San Diego, CA

Passed by Congress in 1978, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act requires employers to treat “women affected by pregnancy . . . the same for all employment-related purposes . . . as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work.”  42 U.S.C. § 2000e(k).  Thirty-seven years later, the United States Supreme Court in Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc., addressed the question of what it means to treat pregnant employees “similar in their ability or inability to work” and specifically, how this provision applies in the context of an employer’s policy that accommodates many, but not all, employees with work limitations based on characteristics unrelated to pregnancy.Continue reading.