Geduldig v. Aiello
Encyclopedia
Geduldig v. Aiello, , was an equal protection
case in the United States
in which the Supreme Court
ruled that the denial of insurance
benefits for work loss resulting from a normal pregnancy
did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The California
insurance program at issue did not exclude workers from eligibility based on sex
but did exclude pregnancy from a list of compensable disabilities. The majority found that even though only women would be directly affected by the administrative decision, the classification of normal pregnancy as non-compensable was not a sex-based classification, and therefore the court would defer to the state so long as it could provide a rational basis
for its categorization.
majority opinion laid out the background and procedural posture of the case. Beginning in 1946, the state of California ran a disability insurance system to cover employees of private businesses during periods of temporary unemployment due to disabilities not covered by workmen’s compensation. The program was funded by contributions deducted from the wages of participating employees, for whom participation was generally mandatory unless they belonged to an approved private insurance plan. Employees who had contributed 1% of a minimum income to the disability fund for one year prior to a period of disability were eligible to receive benefits. However, certain disabilities would not be covered, including those resulting from commitment
for dipsomania
, drug addiction, or sexual
psychopathy
. In Geduldig, the appellees challenged the further exclusion of certain disabilities resulting from pregnancy, as found in §2626 of the Unemployment Insurance Code: “In no case shall the term ‘disability’ or ‘disabled’ include any injury or illness caused by or arising in connection with pregnancy up to the termination of such pregnancy and for a period of 28 days thereafter.”
The litigation began as two separate class action
suits brought by employees who had paid into the state’s disability fund but who had been denied benefits relating to pregnancy-related disabilities. Three of the employees suffered employment disability after complications that arose during their pregnancies, while the fourth experienced a normal pregnancy which still led to a temporary inability to work. Carolyn Aiello brought suit in Federal District Court
, while Augustina Armendariz, Elizabeth Johnson, and Jacqueline Jaramillo brought suit as a petition for a writ of mandate
in the state’s supreme court
. The separate cases were consolidated when the state suit was removed
to federal court by the appellant, Dwight Geduldig, Director of the California Department of Human Resources Development.
Initially, the appellees sought to enjoin
enforcement of the exclusionary policy, and the District Court, as a divided three-judge panel, granted their motion
for summary judgment
, holding that the program’s administration violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and stating that “the exclusion of pregnancy-related disabilities is not based upon a classification having a rational and substantial relationship to a legitimate state purpose.” The court further denied a motion to stay its judgment pending appeal
. The appellant proceeded to file a similar motion with the Supreme Court, which noted probable jurisdiction of the appeal.
Although three of the appellees brought suit to recover benefits for loss of work after complications from pregnancy (tubal and ectopic pregnancies
and a miscarriage
), this issue was moot
by the time the case reached the Supreme Court due to a decision in another case. In Rentzer v. California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, the state court interpreted the statute as applying only to benefit payments for disabilities resulting from normal pregnancies, thus allowing a woman who had suffered an ectopic pregnancy
to recover benefits. Therefore, the only remaining live controversy in Geduldig was whether appellee Jaramillo and others similarly situated were entitled to benefits for work loss related to normal and generally healthy pregnancy and childbirth
.
for the policy as argued by the state. Justice Stewart focused largely on the economics
of the benefit system, which had been operating as a self-supporting system since its inception. The contribution rate to the disability fund as set struck a balance that allowed the state to cover the health conditions that it had deemed eligible under the program: in the years immediately preceding Geduldig, 90-103% of the disability fund’s revenue had been utilized to pay disability and hospital
benefits. Both parties acknowledged that to cover more disability risks would require an increase in the amount of money going into the fund, although they disagreed on the amount this would entail. The District Court accepted the state’s estimate that to cover normal pregnancy and delivery would require the fund to pay out over $100 million more in benefits but found that this would not destroy the solvency
of the program, although it would require “reasonable changes in the contribution rate, the maximum benefits allowable, and other variables.” The state, however, argued that such changes would jeopardize the ability of low-income
Californians to participate in the program, and thus it had a rational basis to maintain the system in its existing state.
The majority pointed to Williamson v. Lee Optical, in which the Court found that a legislature could legitimately address problems in phases
, prioritizing issues which were most pressing. The Geduldig majority stated that it would be particularly hesitant to second-guess such prioritization and legislative calculation in regards to social welfare programs, citing the premise in Dandridge v. Williams that the Equal Protection Clause “does not require that a State must choose between attacking every aspect of a problem or not attacking the problem at all.” California, the majority held, could legitimately and constitutionally decide that it was better to “keep benefit payments at an adequate level for disabilities that are covered, rather than to cover all disabilities inadequately.”
Finally, Stewart’s opinion turned to the issue of whether California’s rational basis for its policy was sufficient to uphold the state’s position. The majority found in the insurance system no invidious discrimination that would violate the Equal Protection Clause, pointing out that women as a group were still eligible for benefits even though the particular condition of pregnancy might not be covered. The Court reasoned that there was “no risk from which men are protected and women are not,” and “no risk from which women are protected and men are not.” As stated in Footnote 20 of the majority opinion,
While the Court acknowledged that only women could undergo the excluded condition, “it does not follow that every legislative classification concerning pregnancy is a sex-based classification.” Pregnancy was an objectively identifiable characteristic rather than a subjective judgment, and the appellants had made no showing that the state’s asserted rationale for the policy was a pretext for invidious discrimination. Thus, California’s policy was not one which the Court would subject to the heightened scrutiny
that it had used to evaluate cases such as Reed v. Reed
and Frontiero v. Richardson
, and therefore the rational basis presented by the state was enough to allow the policy to stand.
The majority reversed the lower court’s decision and vacated the stay previously granted.
The dissenters pointed out that pregnancy was one of the only common conditions affecting health that was not covered by the broad scope of California’s Unemployment Insurance Code, even though the economic results of it might be functionally identical to those of other disabilities, in that wages might be lost due to temporary physical inability to work, and even in healthy individuals, pregnancy, delivery, and post-partum care are costly.
Brennan and the other dissenters viewed the state’s policy as “singling out for less favorable treatment a gender-linked disability peculiar to women,” creating a “double standard.” They interpreted the policy as one in which
The dissenters expressed dissatisfaction with the majority’s explanation for its refusal to apply a higher standard of review in a case involving issues tied to sex. Brennan, Douglas and Marshall viewed Stewart’s opinion as a retreat from recent equal protection decisions and voiced concern that the majority’s decision would relegate sex-based classifications to the same “traditional” analysis that had allowed legislation such as that in Muller v. Oregon
.
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"...
case in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in which the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
ruled that the denial of insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
benefits for work loss resulting from a normal pregnancy
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
insurance program at issue did not exclude workers from eligibility based on sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
but did exclude pregnancy from a list of compensable disabilities. The majority found that even though only women would be directly affected by the administrative decision, the classification of normal pregnancy as non-compensable was not a sex-based classification, and therefore the court would defer to the state so long as it could provide a rational basis
Rational basis review
Rational basis review, in U.S. constitutional law, refers to a level of scrutiny applied by courts when deciding cases presenting constitutional due process or equal protection issues related to the Fifth Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment. Rational basis is the lowest level of scrutiny that a...
for its categorization.
Background
Part I of Justice Potter Stewart’sPotter Stewart
Potter Stewart was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. During his tenure, he made, among other areas, major contributions to criminal justice reform, civil rights, access to the courts, and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.-Education:Stewart was born in Jackson, Michigan,...
majority opinion laid out the background and procedural posture of the case. Beginning in 1946, the state of California ran a disability insurance system to cover employees of private businesses during periods of temporary unemployment due to disabilities not covered by workmen’s compensation. The program was funded by contributions deducted from the wages of participating employees, for whom participation was generally mandatory unless they belonged to an approved private insurance plan. Employees who had contributed 1% of a minimum income to the disability fund for one year prior to a period of disability were eligible to receive benefits. However, certain disabilities would not be covered, including those resulting from commitment
Involuntary commitment
Involuntary commitment or civil commitment is a legal process through which an individual with symptoms of severe mental illness is court-ordered into treatment in a hospital or in the community ....
for dipsomania
Dipsomania
Dipsomania is a historical term describing a medical condition involving an uncontrollable craving for alcohol. It was used in the 19th century to describe a variety of alcohol-related problems, most of which are most commonly conceptualized today as alcoholism, but it is occasionally still used to...
, drug addiction, or sexual
Human sexual behavior
Human sexual activities or human sexual practices or human sexual behavior refers to the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts from time to time, and for a wide variety of reasons...
psychopathy
Psychopathy
Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...
. In Geduldig, the appellees challenged the further exclusion of certain disabilities resulting from pregnancy, as found in §2626 of the Unemployment Insurance Code: “In no case shall the term ‘disability’ or ‘disabled’ include any injury or illness caused by or arising in connection with pregnancy up to the termination of such pregnancy and for a period of 28 days thereafter.”
The litigation began as two separate class action
Class action
In law, a class action, a class suit, or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued...
suits brought by employees who had paid into the state’s disability fund but who had been denied benefits relating to pregnancy-related disabilities. Three of the employees suffered employment disability after complications that arose during their pregnancies, while the fourth experienced a normal pregnancy which still led to a temporary inability to work. Carolyn Aiello brought suit in Federal District Court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
, while Augustina Armendariz, Elizabeth Johnson, and Jacqueline Jaramillo brought suit as a petition for a writ of mandate
Mandamus
A writ of mandamus or mandamus , or sometimes mandate, is the name of one of the prerogative writs in the common law, and is "issued by a superior court to compel a lower court or a government officer to perform mandatory or purely ministerial duties correctly".Mandamus is a judicial remedy which...
in the state’s supreme court
Supreme Court of California
The Supreme Court of California is the highest state court in California. It is headquartered in San Francisco and regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacramento. Its decisions are binding on all other California state courts.-Composition:...
. The separate cases were consolidated when the state suit was removed
Removal jurisdiction
In the United States, removal jurisdiction refers to the right of a defendant to move a lawsuit filed in state court to the federal district court for the federal judicial district in which the state court sits. This is a general exception to the usual American rule giving the plaintiff the right...
to federal court by the appellant, Dwight Geduldig, Director of the California Department of Human Resources Development.
Initially, the appellees sought to enjoin
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
enforcement of the exclusionary policy, and the District Court, as a divided three-judge panel, granted their motion
Motion (legal)
In law, a motion is a procedural device to bring a limited, contested issue before a court for decision. A motion may be thought of as a request to the judge to make a decision about the case. Motions may be made at any point in administrative, criminal or civil proceedings, although that right is...
for summary judgment
Summary judgment
In law, a summary judgment is a determination made by a court without a full trial. Such a judgment may be issued as to the merits of an entire case, or of specific issues in that case....
, holding that the program’s administration violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and stating that “the exclusion of pregnancy-related disabilities is not based upon a classification having a rational and substantial relationship to a legitimate state purpose.” The court further denied a motion to stay its judgment pending appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
. The appellant proceeded to file a similar motion with the Supreme Court, which noted probable jurisdiction of the appeal.
Although three of the appellees brought suit to recover benefits for loss of work after complications from pregnancy (tubal and ectopic pregnancies
Ectopic pregnancy
An ectopic pregnancy, or eccysis , is a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo implants outside the uterine cavity. With rare exceptions, ectopic pregnancies are not viable. Furthermore, they are dangerous for the parent, since internal haemorrhage is a life threatening complication...
and a miscarriage
Miscarriage
Miscarriage or spontaneous abortion is the spontaneous end of a pregnancy at a stage where the embryo or fetus is incapable of surviving independently, generally defined in humans at prior to 20 weeks of gestation...
), this issue was moot
Mootness
In American law, a matter is moot if further legal proceedings with regard to it can have no effect, or events have placed it beyond the reach of the law...
by the time the case reached the Supreme Court due to a decision in another case. In Rentzer v. California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, the state court interpreted the statute as applying only to benefit payments for disabilities resulting from normal pregnancies, thus allowing a woman who had suffered an ectopic pregnancy
Ectopic pregnancy
An ectopic pregnancy, or eccysis , is a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo implants outside the uterine cavity. With rare exceptions, ectopic pregnancies are not viable. Furthermore, they are dangerous for the parent, since internal haemorrhage is a life threatening complication...
to recover benefits. Therefore, the only remaining live controversy in Geduldig was whether appellee Jaramillo and others similarly situated were entitled to benefits for work loss related to normal and generally healthy pregnancy and childbirth
Childbirth
Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...
.
The majority’s holding
Part II of the majority opinion first laid out the rational basisRational basis review
Rational basis review, in U.S. constitutional law, refers to a level of scrutiny applied by courts when deciding cases presenting constitutional due process or equal protection issues related to the Fifth Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment. Rational basis is the lowest level of scrutiny that a...
for the policy as argued by the state. Justice Stewart focused largely on the economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
of the benefit system, which had been operating as a self-supporting system since its inception. The contribution rate to the disability fund as set struck a balance that allowed the state to cover the health conditions that it had deemed eligible under the program: in the years immediately preceding Geduldig, 90-103% of the disability fund’s revenue had been utilized to pay disability and hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
benefits. Both parties acknowledged that to cover more disability risks would require an increase in the amount of money going into the fund, although they disagreed on the amount this would entail. The District Court accepted the state’s estimate that to cover normal pregnancy and delivery would require the fund to pay out over $100 million more in benefits but found that this would not destroy the solvency
Solvency
Solvency, in finance or business, is the degree to which the current assets of an individual or entity exceed the current liabilities of that individual or entity. Solvency can also be described as the ability of a corporation to meet its long-term fixed expenses and to accomplish long-term...
of the program, although it would require “reasonable changes in the contribution rate, the maximum benefits allowable, and other variables.” The state, however, argued that such changes would jeopardize the ability of low-income
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
Californians to participate in the program, and thus it had a rational basis to maintain the system in its existing state.
The majority pointed to Williamson v. Lee Optical, in which the Court found that a legislature could legitimately address problems in phases
Increment
An increment is an increase of some amount, either fixed or variable. For example one's salary may have a fixed annual increment or one based on a percentage of its current value...
, prioritizing issues which were most pressing. The Geduldig majority stated that it would be particularly hesitant to second-guess such prioritization and legislative calculation in regards to social welfare programs, citing the premise in Dandridge v. Williams that the Equal Protection Clause “does not require that a State must choose between attacking every aspect of a problem or not attacking the problem at all.” California, the majority held, could legitimately and constitutionally decide that it was better to “keep benefit payments at an adequate level for disabilities that are covered, rather than to cover all disabilities inadequately.”
Finally, Stewart’s opinion turned to the issue of whether California’s rational basis for its policy was sufficient to uphold the state’s position. The majority found in the insurance system no invidious discrimination that would violate the Equal Protection Clause, pointing out that women as a group were still eligible for benefits even though the particular condition of pregnancy might not be covered. The Court reasoned that there was “no risk from which men are protected and women are not,” and “no risk from which women are protected and men are not.” As stated in Footnote 20 of the majority opinion,
The program divides potential recipients into two groups-pregnant women and nonpregnant persons. While the first group is exclusively female, the second includes members of both sexes. The fiscal and actuarial benefits of the program thus accrue to members of both sexes.
While the Court acknowledged that only women could undergo the excluded condition, “it does not follow that every legislative classification concerning pregnancy is a sex-based classification.” Pregnancy was an objectively identifiable characteristic rather than a subjective judgment, and the appellants had made no showing that the state’s asserted rationale for the policy was a pretext for invidious discrimination. Thus, California’s policy was not one which the Court would subject to the heightened scrutiny
Intermediate scrutiny
Intermediate scrutiny, in U.S. constitutional law, is the second level of deciding issues using judicial review. The other levels are typically referred to as rational basis review and strict scrutiny ....
that it had used to evaluate cases such as Reed v. Reed
Reed v. Reed
Reed v. Reed, , was an Equal Protection case in the United States in which the Supreme Court ruled that the administrators of estates cannot be named in a way that discriminates between sexes. After the death of their adopted son, Sally and Cecil Reed sought to be named the administrator of their...
and Frontiero v. Richardson
Frontiero v. Richardson
Frontiero v. Richardson, , was an Equal Protection case in which the Supreme Court decided that benefits given by the United States military to the family of service members cannot be given out differently because of gender....
, and therefore the rational basis presented by the state was enough to allow the policy to stand.
The majority reversed the lower court’s decision and vacated the stay previously granted.
Dissent
Justice Brennan, joined by Justices Douglas and Marshall, dissented from the majority’s opinion, arguing that under Reed and Frontiero, intermediate scrutiny was the proper level of review for the issue, and that under this analysis California’s classification failed, as the appellants had only set out a rational basis for the state’s policy. The dissenters acknowledged that the fiscal solvency of California’s insurance program was a legitimate concern and that to include temporary disabilities resulting from normal pregnancy in the scope of conditions covered by the system would require an increase in the employee contribution, an increase in the yearly contribution ceiling, or state subsidization. However,whatever role such monetary considerations may play in traditional equal protection analysis, the State’s interest in preserving the fiscal integrity of its disability insurance program simply cannot render the State’s use of a suspect classification constitutional.
The dissenters pointed out that pregnancy was one of the only common conditions affecting health that was not covered by the broad scope of California’s Unemployment Insurance Code, even though the economic results of it might be functionally identical to those of other disabilities, in that wages might be lost due to temporary physical inability to work, and even in healthy individuals, pregnancy, delivery, and post-partum care are costly.
Brennan and the other dissenters viewed the state’s policy as “singling out for less favorable treatment a gender-linked disability peculiar to women,” creating a “double standard.” They interpreted the policy as one in which
a limitation is imposed upon the disabilities for which women workers may recover, while men receive full compensation for all disabilities suffered. ...In effect, one set of rules is applied to females and another to males. Such dissimilar treatment of men and women, on the basis of physical characteristics inextricably linked to one sex, inevitably constitutes sex discrimination.
The dissenters expressed dissatisfaction with the majority’s explanation for its refusal to apply a higher standard of review in a case involving issues tied to sex. Brennan, Douglas and Marshall viewed Stewart’s opinion as a retreat from recent equal protection decisions and voiced concern that the majority’s decision would relegate sex-based classifications to the same “traditional” analysis that had allowed legislation such as that in Muller v. Oregon
Muller v. Oregon
Muller v. Oregon, , was a landmark decision in United States Supreme Court history, as it justifies both sex discrimination and usage of labor laws during the time period...
.
See also
- List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 417
- Craig v. BorenCraig v. BorenCraig v. Boren, , was the first case in which a majority of the United States Supreme Court determined that statutory or administrative sex classifications had to be subjected to an intermediate standard of judicial review...
- Gender equalityGender equalityGender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...
- List of gender equality lawsuits