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A Crack in States'
Lawsuit Immunity
Justices defend Family Leave Act in creating exception for state workers
By
Robert Schwaneberg, Star-Ledger Staff, Wednesday, May 28, 2003
In a decision intended to shatter stereotypes about women in the workplace, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday that state governments may be sued for violating their employees' right, under federal law, to take time off to care for sick family members.
The 6-3 ruling marked a break from previous high court decisions that said states were immune from lawsuits by employees alleging other types of discrimination, notably on the basis of age or disability.
What made this case different, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote, was that Congress was exercising its power to enforce the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection when it passed the federal Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993.
The FMLA "protects the right to be free from gender-based discrimination in the workplace" by providing time off to men and women on an equal basis to care for sick family members, Rehnquist wrote.
That goal is so important -- and the history of sexual stereotyping by state governments so clear -- that Congress was justified in stripping the states of the "sovereign immunity" against private lawsuits they ordinarily enjoy under the Eleventh Amendment, Rehnquist concluded.
"It's a victory for women, but it really is a victory for families," said Elizabeth
Volz, president of the state chapter of the National Organization for Women.
It also was a victory for state workers, but one that will be felt in other states more than in New Jersey, where the right to family leave is also protected under a 1989 state law.
Both the state and federal laws entitle workers to take 12 weeks of unpaid leave, according to Christina Silva Lee, a Roseland employment lawyer.
Under the New Jersey law, state government workers whose rights to family leave are violated can "file a case with us or go to state Superior Court" and file a lawsuit, according to Frank
Vespa-Papaleo, director of the state Division on Civil Rights. In the past 5 1/2 years, he said, his agency has received 80 complaints of violations of the state Family Leave Act, with two of them directed at state agencies.
But while the state law allows employees to take unpaid leave only to care for a sick or disabled relative, the federal law also protects their right to take medical leave if they become sick themselves.
That gap in the state law makes yesterday's decision important for ailing state employees who do not have enough accumulated sick leave to cover the time off they need to recuperate, according to Wayne
Positan, a former chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association's labor and employment law section.
"If they couldn't sue under federal law, they would have no remedy," Positan said.
The court yesterday ruled that William Hibbs, who claimed he was illegally fired for taking time off from his job with the Nevada Department of Human Resources to help his wife recuperate from a 1997 automobile accident, is entitled to his day in court. A trial judge had ruled the state was immune.
Rehnquist stressed that the FMLA was intended to shatter the stereotype -- widely held by both private and government hiring officials -- that women cannot be trusted as workers because they always will put their families first.
"By creating an across-the-board, routine employment benefit for all eligible employees, Congress sought to ensure that family-care leave would no longer be stigmatized as an inordinate drain on the workplace caused by female employees, and that employers could not evade leave obligations simply by hiring men," Rehnquist wrote.
"By setting a minimum standard of family leave for all eligible employees, irrespective of gender," he continued, "the FMLA attacks the formerly state-sanctioned stereotype that only women are responsible for family
caregiving, thereby reducing employers' incentives to engage in discrimination by basing hiring and promotion decisions on stereotypes."
Justice Anthony Kennedy, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, dissented. Kennedy wrote that there was too little evidence of state discrimination against female workers to justify stripping the states of their immunity.
Robert Schwaneberg covers legal issues. He can be reached at
rschwaneberg@starledger.com or (609) 989-0324. |
