Recently, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that the agency had filed 110 lawsuits challenging unlawful employment discrimination practices in fiscal year 2024. The EEOC is responsible for oversight and enforcement of federal employment discrimination laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA).
The EEOC’s FY 2024 Litigation Statistics
What is striking about the EEOC’s FY 2024 litigation statistics is the agency’s continued enforcement emphasis on employee accommodations laws, with numerous lawsuits filed this year that “allege employers failed to provide reasonable accommodations to workers who were entitled to them. . ..” In particular, the EEOC has focused on the ADA, filing forty-eight cases – nearly half of all the merits litigation filed by the agency in 2024 – on behalf of workers with disabilities.
EEOC Enforcement of the ADA
The ADA requires employers to provide applicants and employees with reasonable accommodations, i.e., modifications or adjustments to a job or the work environment that will enable an applicant or employee with a disability to participate in the application process or to perform essential job functions. The EEOC’s lawsuits have challenged employer qualification standards or other policies, such as those requiring employees to work with no medical restrictions, without consideration of possible accommodations, or those assessing demerit points for absences related to an employee’s disability, which violate the ADA, in the EEOC’s view, because they are too inflexible.
EEOC Enforcement of the PWFA as an “Emerging Issue”
Also, of interest to employers should be the EEOC’s emphasis on enforcing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act as an “emerging issue,” with the agency filing five PWFA lawsuits against employers in 2024. The PWFA became law on June 27, 2023; the EEOC’s implementing regulations just went into effect on June 18, 2024. The PWFA requires covered employers (15 or more employees) to “provide reasonable accommodations to qualified workers affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, so they can remain healthy and in their jobs.” The PWFA’s coverage is intentionally broad, allowing employees with “uncomplicated pregnancies to seek workplace accommodations.
Under the PWFA, employers must provide reasonable accommodations, absent undue hardship, to a “qualified employee” with a “known limitation” related to, affected by, or arising out of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. Read more about the PWFA’s required accommodations and definition of undue hardship here. The term “limitation,” as used in the PWFA, covers both physical and mental conditions, including those that may be modest, minor, or an episodic impediment or problem. In other words, the employee’s physical or mental condition does not need to rise to the seriousness of a ‘disability’ under the ADA.” The PWFA covers an employee who is unable to perform an essential function temporarily, if the employee will be able to perform the essential function “in the near future,” which the EEOC’s regulations define as “generally [up to] forty weeks from the start of the temporary suspension of an essential function.”
What Can Employers Anticipate from the EEOC in 2025?
Moving forward into 2025, employers should anticipate that the EEOC will continue to focus its enforcement efforts and litigation resources on the PWFA. Adding further risk to the equation for employers are the more than thirty state law equivalents to the PWFA, including the Virginia Values Act, which is applicable to many Virginia businesses. With all of this, employers should continue to pay close attention to the PWFA and its requirement that employers reasonably accommodate an employee’s physical or mental condition related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, even if that condition is modest, minor, or episodic.
Bean, Kinney & Korman’s employment law practice group works proactively with employers of all sizes, in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, to craft a full range of employment policies and documents to meet the compliance challenges of the PWFA, and all applicable federal, state, and local laws. If you have questions about the PWFA, the EEOC’s proposed regulations, or need assistance with your company’s employee policies or forms, please contact Doug Taylor at (703) 525-4000 or rdougtaylor@beankinney.com, or your current Bean, Kinney & Korman attorney.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not contain or convey legal advice. Consult a lawyer. Any views or opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily the views of any client.