The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has tossed out a lawsuit alleging pregnancy discrimination against a Walmart distribution center, ruling the center had shown a “legitimate, nondiscriminatory justification” for offering lighter duty to employees injured on the job, but not to pregnant workers, since the injured-worker policy was tied to the state of Wisconsin’s worker’s compensation law.
“From Walmart’s standpoint, it had chosen for sound reasons to offer a benefit to a certain category of workers, those injured on the job, without intending to discriminate against anyone else with physical limitations, whether caused by off-the-job injuries, illness, pregnancy, or anything else, to whom its reasons did not apply,” wrote a three-judge panel of the circuit court.