Lawsuit Marks Second Time That Suffolk County Is Using Taxpayer Dollars to Defend Policy That Penalizes Pregnant Women and their Families
 
(New York, N.Y.) – On Monday April 27, Suffolk County will appear in federal court to defend a policy that penalizes women law enforcement officers when they become pregnant. Legal Momentum, the nation’s oldest legal advocacy organization dedicated to advancing the rights of women and girls, has teamed with Janice Goodman, a veteran advocate for working women, to stand up for the rights of Suffolk County Park Police Officer Tara Germain, who was forced to take a nearly year-long unpaid leave of absence during her pregnancy when the county refused to give her a light duty job assignment, as recommended by her doctor.
 
This is not the first time Suffolk County’s refusal to provide light duty to a pregnant law enforcement officer has been challenged in court.  In 2006, a jury in Lochren v. County of Suffolk found that the county violated the federal law against pregnancy discrimination when it refused to give light duty to pregnant officers in the Police Department, despite giving such assignments to workers injured on the job.  Ignoring this finding, Suffolk County continues to use the same policy to deny light duty to Officer Germain, claiming that the Lochren ruling only applies to the Police Department.
 
As a result of the county’s decision, Officer Germain was forced to use up all her accrued leave time, and then to take an unpaid leave of absence for almost nine months, during which time she did not have benefits, did not accrue seniority, and did not enhance her pension.
 
“Three years after Lochren, Suffolk County officials are again making women officers choose between having a baby and having a job,” said Janice Goodman, lead counsel for Officer Germain. “That they are using taxpayer dollars to defend this discriminatory policy a second time is hard to believe.”
 
The county further refused to allow Officer Germain’s husband, a sergeant in the Suffolk County Police Department, to donate his accrued paid leave to his wife so that she could have income during her pregnancy.
 
According to Irasema Garza, President of Legal Momentum, light duty policies like Suffolk County’s are being used around the country to force women in physically demanding jobs out of work.  “Pregnancy is a fact of life for most women. Employer policies that fail to accommodate the dual demands of pregnancy and work threaten to roll back decades of gains for women in the workforce and undermine their increasingly critical role as wage earners for their families in these tough economic times.”
 
Legal Momentum joined as co-counsel on behalf of Officer Germain as part of its ongoing efforts to illustrate the full range of discrimination experienced by working women, especially those employed in historically male-dominated, “non-traditional” jobs. Because of the physical nature of many of these jobs, pregnancy discrimination is a particular concern for women in these fields.
 
For more information or to speak with Tara Germain or her counsel, please contact alevat@legalmomentum.org or call 212.413.7510. 
 
About Legal Momentum
Founded in 1970, Legal Momentum is the nation’s oldest legal legal defense and education fund dedicated to advancing the rights of women and girls. www.legalmomentum.org