THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 24, 1995 TAG: 9512240046
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ROANOKE LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Virginia law does not protect a woman from being fired for getting pregnant, a Roanoke judge has ruled.
Circuit Judge Clifford Weckstein dismissed a lawsuit by Lisa Bailey last week, ruling that state law does not define sexual discrimination in relation to pregnancy and childbirth.
Bailey said she was fired from her job as sales coordinator for Scott-Gallaher Inc. in 1994 after becoming pregnant and missing work on the advice of her doctor. She said her employer told her that ``her place was at home with the child.''
``This decision in effect forces women to choose between maintaining their employment or terminating their pregnancy,'' said Terry Grimes, Bailey's lawyer. ``Women should not have to make that choice. That is a Draconian viewpoint.''
According to Bailey's lawsuit, she experienced premature labor in July 1994 and was told by her doctor not to work. When her doctor cleared her to return to work in October 1994, Bailey called the company to ask when she should report back and was told that she had been fired.
The company's president, Ron Scott, told Bailey she had been let go ``because she was no longer dependable since she had delivered a child,'' the suit alleged.
Scott-Gallaher's attorney, Clinton Morse of Roanoke, did not dispute those allegations in a response to the lawsuit, but said Bailey's claim was not recognized by state law. However, he said Friday that ``we are not admitting that what she claimed was true.''
Weckstein, while expressing some sympathy for Bailey, said Virginia is an at-will employment state, meaning that employers and employees can sever their relationships at any time without having to state a reason.
There are certain exceptions that bar termination on the grounds of sex, race, religion or national origin. However, Weckstein ruled that state law does not specifically define sexual discrimination as applying to issues of pregnancy or childbirth.
Weckstein referred to a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision in which female employees of General Electric Co. in Salem claimed they were unfairly denied benefits for time they missed from work because of pregnancy.
In his majority opinion, current Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote that, while ``it is true that only women can become pregnant,'' GE nonetheless did not practice sexual discrimination when it excluded pregnancy and childbirth from its benefits policy.
``When the Supreme Court of the United States has held that an employer which engages in disparate treatment because of pregnancy and childbirth does not discriminate because of sex, then a trial court judge is bound to read the same words in the same way,'' Weckstein wrote in his decision.
Since the 1974 Supreme Court decision, Congress has passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which bars termination because of pregnancy. But Bailey's lawsuit was filed in state court, and Weckstein said Virginia has yet to recognize pregnancy and childbirth as exceptions to the at-will employment law.
In a letter to Weckstein on Friday, Grimes asked the judge to reconsider his decision. He noted that a judge in Newport News had ruled the opposite way in a similar case just one week earlier.
In that case, Circuit Judge Robert Curran held that forcing women to make the choice of aborting their unborn children or quitting their jobs ``is completely inconsistent with the public policy of the commonwealth.''
Weckstein has not yet indicated whether he will act on the motion to reconsider. by CNB