Pregnancy does not trump normal leave policy

The Ohio Supreme Court has recently ruled that a pregnant woman does not have any special exception to a company policy which holds that an employee must be employed for 6 months before they can obtain any leave from their employment. In the case of McFee v. Nursing Care Mgt. of Am., Inc., the plaintiff was employed by a nursing home company that had a policy that stated that all employees had to be on the job for at least 6 months before they were entitled to any paid leave. However, the plaintiff ended up getting pregnant before she was employed for 6 months, and when the employer would not give her pregnancy leave, she sued the employer claiming that she was being discriminated against for being a woman. The lower appellate court held that Ohio law required all employers to provide all employees with a reasonable period of time for maternity leave - and thus held that the nursing home had discriminated against the plaintiff. However, the Ohio Supreme Court held that because the employer had a gender neutral policy which required that all employees be on the job for at least 6 months before they get any leave, the fact that the employer would not give the plaintiff maternity leave did not constitute sex discrimination.

Woman (and for that matter - men) need to read their employee manual when they accept a new job.