U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs recently retracted his previous ruling regarding a case in which two AT&T employees sued the company for failing to cover prescription contraceptives under the company's health insurance plan, the Kansas City Star reports. Sachs originally ruled in favor of one plaintiff and certified the case as class action. However, Sachs last week rescinded his ruling, saying he is bound by a precedent established by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis that found Union Pacific Railroad's policy of not covering contraceptives does not discriminate against women (Margolies, Kansas City Star, 10/29).
The two AT&T employees in January 2003 filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the company's female employees alleging that the failure of its health insurance plan to cover prescription contraceptives violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978. Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, while the Pregnancy Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions. Although the company's health insurance plan began covering oral contraceptives ordered by mail, the lawsuit contests the plan's failure to provide other forms of birth control -- including Pfizer's injection contraceptive Depo-Provera, intrauterine devices and diaphragms -- because it covers other sex-related prescription drugs for men, such as Viagra (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 1/22/03).
Sachs in his previous ruling -- which limited one of the plaintiff's damages to $1 daily for 300 days -- found that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act required employers to cover contraceptives, although he "expressed some reservation on the matter," according to the Star. Sachs' certification of the case as class action could have had large-scale implications for the company because of its large number of female employees, the Star reports (Kansas City Star, 10/29).
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