Mon Jul 25, 2005 04:35 PM ET
By Daniel Sorid
SAN FRANCISCO, July 25 (Reuters) - A federal judge ruled that the nation's largest railroad cannot exclude prescription contraception benefits to female union workers, calling pregnancy a medical condition no less of a health threat to women than other ailments.
The decision by Judge Laurie Smith Camp of the U.S. District Court in Nebraska was hailed by advocates for women's health rights, who said the Union Pacific Corp. would be forced to cover contraception in all of its worker health plans.
Roberta Riley, a staff attorney for Planned Parenthood of Western Washington and a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the case, said the railroad, the largest in North America, is one of the last big U.S. employers to refuse contraception coverage.
A spokesman for Omaha-based Union Pacific, Mark Davis, said the company planned to appeal the decision.
The railroad's union employees have "some of the most gracious health and welfare benefits in American industry," Davis said, adding that the union had not sought contraception coverage for its members during negotiations.
In court, the company had argued that excluding all contraceptive benefits to both men and women was equal treatment and that contraception is not medically necessary since fertility is normal.
In her decision, Smith Camp wrote the railroad's policy constituted discrimination against women and violated Title VII of the Civil Right Act. To illustrate her point, the judge described a hypothetical disease afflicting both men and women and carrying the similar burdens of pregnancy.
"His pain increases and accelerates over approximately 15 hours," the judge wrote in the hypothetical case, "as his genital opening, usually the size of a pencil lead, is stretched to a diameter of 10 centimeters."
This hypothetical illness, the judge wrote, raises the question of "whether the Plans treat women who have the risk of pregnancy less favorably than the Plans treat other people."
The railroad's policy violates federal law, the judge wrote, "because it treats medical care women need to prevent pregnancy less favorably than it treats medical care needed to prevent other medical conditions that are no greater threat to employees' health plan than is pregnancy."
Some of Union Pacific's health plans cover prescription medication for male-pattern baldness and erectile dysfunction, the judge noted.
Granting a motion for summary judgment, Smith Camp said the court would schedule a hearing to decide issues of injunctive relief, damages and attorneys fees.
The two lead plaintiffs in the case, Brandi Standridge and Kenya Phillips, represent a class of current and former Union Pacific employees. Union Pacific employs 48,000 people and, of those, 1,300 are unionized women, according to court papers.
Recent studies show that nearly nine in 10 employee health plans cover contraception, an increase from just two in 10 as recently as the late 1990s, said Riley.
The increase, she said, can be attributed to the ramifications of a 2001 federal court case, Erickson v. Bartell Drug Co., which found that excluding contraceptives from prescription plans constitutes sex discrimination.
"I certainly hope it's the nail in the coffin on this issue," she added.
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