Dive Brief:
- A group of 17 states may proceed with their legal challenge seeking to enjoin the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s pregnancy accommodation final rule, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held Thursday.
- The court reversed a district court’s finding that the states, led by Tennessee, lacked standing to challenge the rule. It held that the states faced injury from EEOC’s rule — specifically, the agency’s inclusion of abortion under the list of “related medical conditions” for which an employer must provide reasonable accommodations — and therefore met the standing requirements of the Constitution under Article III.
- The three-judge panel remanded the case for further proceedings but expressed no view on the merits of the states’ allegations that EEOC’s rule is arbitrary and capricious, exceeded the agency’s statutory authority and violated the states’ First Amendment guarantee of free speech. The 8th Circuit similarly did not weigh on the states’ claim that the for-cause removal structure of EEOC commissioners is unconstitutional.
Dive Insight:
While the decision allows the states’ challenge of EEOC’s final rule to move forward, the future of the rule itself is uncertain given the regulatory shifts initiated by the incoming Trump administration.
The 8th Circuit disagreed with EEOC’s argument that its final rule did not compel states to act and did not produce an injury until an employee requested an abortion-related accommodation. The states faced injury in part, the court said, by way of the need to update their employment policies and train staff on the rule’s requirements.
“An employer cannot meet its obligations under the Rule without taking steps to ensure that its employees know their rights and obligations under the Rule,” the 8th Circuit said. “As a practical matter, the Rule requires immediate action by the States to conform to the Rule, and this action produces an injury in fact.”
Congress tasked EEOC with developing regulations to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which took effect in 2023. The agency published its final rule last April, but it included abortion as an example of a pregnancy-related medical condition for which employees must provide reasonable accommodations absent undue hardship. EEOC made that decision over the objections of Republican lawmakers and anti-abortion activists.
Subsequent lawsuits against the rule halted its enforcement with respect to certain religious employers and states including Louisiana and Mississippi.
Commissioner Andrea Lucas, recently named acting chair of EEOC by President Donald Trump, said in a statement Thursday that she intends for the agency to reconsider portions of the pregnancy accommodation rule “that [Lucas] believes are unsupported by law.”
However, EEOC lacks a quorum following Trump’s sacking of two of Lucas’ Democratic co-commissioners. Without a quorum, the agency cannot exercise certain regulatory powers, and Lucas noted that the chair cannot “unilaterally rescind or modify” the rule in whole or in part.