While Williams was working on gathering potential plaintiffs to join Armendariz, another lawyer filed suit on behalf of Carolyn Aiello who was forced out of work due to an ectopic pregnancy. Aiello had filed in federal court, while Williams wanted to stay in state court, which had decided Sail'er Inn. Williams' cases got moved to federal court, joined with Aiello, and she became the lead lawyer after the original lawyer left.
Williams had to made federal claims and so she relied on the equal protection clause, with which Ginsburg had won a partial victory in Reed, and the sex discrimination guidelines of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC had issued guidelines that said that classifications based upon physical characteristics unique to one sex are sex-based classifications.
Williams prevailed at the District Court and the case was fast-tracked to the Supreme Court because it involved a constitutional challenge to the state law.
The state then decided to pay benefits in the case of abnormal pregnancies with involuntary complications, which narrowed the group of women discriminated against and weakened the case.
Armendariz and Aiello were now both out of the case now known as Gedulig v. Aiello.Williams had broken her ankle and did her argument on crutches. Blackmun gave her a B- and wrote that she had long stringy hair. California was also represented by a woman, Joanne Condas, who received a B+. It was only the second time in history that two women had argued at the court.
Justice Potter Stewart wrote the majority and framed the case as one where “there is no risk from which men are protected and women are not.” Brennan''s dissent argued that the law was sex discrimination. In response, Stewart added a footnote explaining that the law was permissible because it discriminated between pregnant women and nonpregnant persons.
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