Discrimination Suit Based on Pregnancy Goes To Trial
Late last week, Law.com reported that a trial had begun in the case of a former law firm associate and a former legal assistant who claim a law firm discriminated against them because they were pregnant. The story (“At trial, Lawyer Claims Former Firm Cut Her Salary Over Pregnancy”) was by Vesselin Mitev of the New York Law Journal. The case is Todaro v. Siegel Fenchel & Peddy, CV-04-2939 (E.D.N.Y.).
The Law.com post provides a good summary of the opening stages of the trial. We note several interesting aspects to this story.
First, it is interesting that we often see stories of law firms getting themselves into discrimination suits. One reason, of course, could be that the plaintiffs are themselves lawyers and prone to sue. Another is that law firm managers typically are too busy being successful as lawyers to be conscious of (or to give priority to) their roles as managers. It would probably be wise not to use the partial validity of the first reason as an excuse to dismiss the second.
Second, the story serves as a reminder to all types of businesses that pregnancy can be the basis of a discrimination suit. As they used to say in the military: be guided accordingly.
Third, although it would be naïve to believe all civil cases should settle bfore trial, when another case goes to trial, we are reminded of the advantages of settlements over litigated resolution of disputes. That point was discussed recently ("Another Reason to Settle") and more extensively in the Connecticut Employment Law Blog in a post by Daniel Schwartz (“Estimating the Costs of Litigation; Parallel Stories Illustrate Difficulty of Predicting Costs and Outcome of Litigation”). I may not be long before our litigation practice is re-designated “Dispute Resolution” because that’s what’s important: resolving the dispute.
