The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled on February 20, 2025, in Tennessee v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, that seventeen (17) State attorneys general have standing to challenge the EEOC’s Final Rule interpreting the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (the “PWFA” or “the Act”). In the first federal appellate court decision to consider the issue, the Eighth Circuit panel held that the plaintiff-States have a sound jurisprudential basis to challenge the Final Rule because the States “are the object of the EEOC’s regulatory action.”
Congress enacted the PWFA in 2023. The Act requires covered employers to provide employees or applicants with reasonable accommodation to known limitations related to, affected by or arising out of “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions,” unless the accommodation will cause the employer undue hardship. 42 U.S.C. § 2000gg(4). Critical to understanding this employer obligation is the embedded term “related medical conditions,” which Congress left undefined, choosing instead to delegate to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) the responsibility to “provide examples of reasonable accommodations addressing known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000gg-3(a).
In April 2024, after notice-and-comment rulemaking, the EEOC issued regulations broadly defining what constitutes “limitations related to, affected by, or arising out of pregnancy, childbirth...
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