Family Responsibility Discrimination (FRD), discriminating against employees because of their need to care for children or elderly parents, is perhaps the fastest-growing set of claims against employers.
One organization recently documented a 400 percent increase in such claims in the last decade.
Most often, the claim is based on an allegation that an employer discriminates against mothers of young children. At the heart of the problem is an assumption that a mother of children will act in a certain way or should act in a certain way.
The plaintiffs in these cases have been able to show that managers made statements such as "Working mothers cannot be both good mothers and good workers," or that an employee's "place was at home with her child."
Questions to female job applicants or workers about plans to have a family or about whether they can perform a job effectively after having a child have landed other companies in hot water.
Stereotypical remarks about women as caregivers, even without more evidence, can be enough for a court or jury to decide that gender discrimination was the reason for an employment decision.
Claims use several lawsInstead of stereotypical remarks, some cases have involved a comparison between mothers and fathers of young children. Where the fathers are promoted or paid better than mothers, even if women without children are also well treated, courts and juries have been willing to find gender discrimination.
Cases have been brought under a number of anti-discrimination statutes. Most claims are brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination.
Some of the plaintiffs, however, have made claims under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which requires employers to treat pregnancy like any other disability. An employer cannot take negative action against a worker based upon the assumption that she will not be able to perform the work because of pregnancy.
Violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is another popular cause of action for plaintiffs. Here the worker alleges that the company interfered with her right to take leave or retaliated against her for taking leave. Women don't bring all such claims, though. Men bring about 8 percent of them.
Because the work force is aging, increasing numbers of employees have the responsibility of caring for elderly parents. Discrimination cases against companies based upon care for elders are usually brought under the FMLA.
In one recent case, a maintenance employee of a hospital was awarded $11.65 million after proving that he was fired for taking leave to care for his elderly parents.
Census data show that 82 percent of women become mothers during their working lives. Those numbers, along with the greater portion of workers who will be caring for elderly parents, mean that companies need to train their managers not to discriminate based upon, or even to make remarks about, the responsibilities that workers have for family care.
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