Breastfeeding workers are notching early wins in the first court decisions taking up a relatively new law expanding rights to pumping in the workplace.
Federal judges have handed down over a dozen decisions involving the 2022 Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act, or PUMP Act, a Bloomberg Law analysis found. In almost half of those cases, workers have survived dismissal, negotiated settlements, advanced to trial, and in one case, prevailed before a jury, according to the analysis of rulings on motions to dismiss or for summary judgment.
These outcomes appear to make PUMP Act plaintiffs outliers, so far, in an employment law landscape where many claims are nixed before trial, with less than 2% going to jurors.
“Plaintiffs are faring better under the PUMP Act than in other employment discrimination matters generally,” said Liz Morris, co-director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California San Diego, which helped advocate for the law. “That could indicate at least some employers are failing to settle prior to litigation because they and their lawyers are not accurately evaluating the strength of these lactation claims.”
Enacted as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act, the PUMP Act requires employers to provide reasonable break times and a private, non-bathroom space for nursing workers to express breast milk for up to a year after birth. Workers can sue employers that fail to meet these requirements for lost wages and...
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