Case Studies

Family Responsibilities Discrimination

Regional training and groundbreaking lawsuits

Family Responsibilities Discrimination (FRD) is a new area of law that considers the negative treatment of workers who must balance their jobs with the need to care for children, aging parents or sick partners.  While this form of discrimination can be directed at anyone, the most likely targets are women.

A major victory in ending FRD came in November 2010, when a federal court in Spokane, WA found that treating women adversely because they are pregnant or are new mothers is a form of illegal gender discrimination.

The suit was filed on behalf of a web designer, Vivian Maxwell.  While pregnant and experiencing bouts of morning sickness, she had been accused, by her employer, of having a bad attitude. Prior to giving birth to her second son, Maxwell had flexible hours, doing some web design from home.  Shortly after returning from maternity leave, when requesting the same flexible hours, she was fired; her employer assumed she could not get work done with children in the home.

The court found the company guilty of gender discrimination because it had typecast Maxwell.  It said the company “appears to have been convinced that as a new mother Ms. Maxwell would not be as good of an employee as she had been prior to her second pregnancy, regardless of any individualized evidence to the contrary.” 

Seeds for this victory were sown many years ago by Joan Williams, who directs WorkLife Law, a center at UC Hastings College of the Law.  Her early work on FRD, which RFF supported, led the federal Equal Employment Opportunities Commission to issue 2007 enforcement guidance on caregivers’ rights and responsibilities.  That guidance, in turn, led several states to toughen their statutes and regulations.

Additionally, we supported WorkLife Law’s efforts to train lawyers at several regional law practices focused on gender discrimination in the workplace.  The training helped lawyers identify the right fact patterns that could be used to advance protection for caregivers.  One of those groups trained was Legal Voice, a Rockefeller Family Fund grantee based in Washington State.  And it was Legal Voice that brought Vivian Maxwell’s case to court and opened a new avenue to protect workers from this pernicious brand of discrimination.

Lessons Learned

  • When a new idea is developed, or a new field is opened, the challenge is in spreading the best practices - quickly.
  • When an issue is ripe, investment in training can pay short- and long-term benefits, and can help remake a field.