Jan Hensel of Dinsmore & Shohl’s employment and education law practice groups successfully argued a case before the Ohio Supreme Court that could have a bearing on how maternity leave is administered by Ohio employers - including Ohio public school districts. In McFee v. Nursing Care Management of America, Inc. d/b/a Pataskala Oaks Care Center, the Ohio Supreme Court held that Ohio law does not prohibit minimum length of service requirements for maternity leave, and does not require preferential treatment of pregnant employees who do not qualify for leave under their employer’s leave policies.

At the time of Tiffany McFee’s hire, Pataskala Oaks had a leave policy modeled after the federal Family and Medical Leave Act ("FMLA"). The policy permitted twelve weeks of leave for employees who had been employed for a minimum of one year. Approximately eights months into her employment, McFee requested leave for pregnancy-related conditions. However, McFee was ineligible for leave under Pataskala Oaks’ policy because she had not worked a minimum of twelve months. McFee nonetheless took unapproved leave and was terminated.

McFee filed a charge of sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission ("OCRC"). The OCRC interpreted Ohio's pregnancy discrimination statutes, R.C. 4112.01 and 4112.02, to require Ohio employers to provide expectant mothers with leave for child birth or pregnancy-related conditions even if the employee is ineligible for such leave under uniformly-applied leave policies. Applying this logic, the OCRC found that Pataskala Oaks’ leave policy constituted unlawful sex discrimination.

Pataskala Oaks appealed the OCRC's decision and the case ultimately made its way to the Ohio Supreme Court. The Supreme Court recognized that Ohio’s pregnancy discrimination statutes direct that pregnant employees be treated “the same for all employment-related purposes as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work.” Therefore, the Court held the statutes do not provide greater protection for pregnant employees than for non-pregnant employees. The Court further held that an employment policy that imposes a uniform minimum length of service requirement with no exception for maternity leave is not direct evidence of discrimination. In such instance, a claimant would need to offer evidence of discriminatory intent in order to successfully prove a case alleging sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy leave. McFee in this case offered no such evidence.

Lesson learned

Many school districts have child care and family related leave provisions in their collective bargaining agreements. However, many of these leave provisions require the employee to be eligible under the FMLA (i.e. 12 months of continued employment) or some other period of continued employment (i.e. a full school year) for an employee to be eligible for such leave. Non-union school districts oftentimes model the eligibility requirements of their child care leave policies after the requirements set forth under the FMLA and/or state law.

This case makes clear that laws prohibiting sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy do not require employers to waive eligibility requirements or otherwise afford preferential treatment to pregnant employees. Ohio employers should now be able to uniformly apply leave policies that treat all temporarily-disabled employees (including pregnant employees) the same without fear of reprisal from the OCRC.