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In Coleman v. Court Of Appeals Of Maryland, Daniel Coleman was employed by the Court of Appeals of the State of Maryland. When he requested sick leave, he was informed he would be terminated if he did not resign. He then filed an FMLA suit, which was dismissed on sovereign immunity grounds. Breaking along the familiar 5-4 line, the Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal. Under the Court’s recent 14th Amendment jurisprudence, Congress can abrogate state sovereign immunity under Section 5 only if its legislation is sufficiently “tailored” to remedy violations of the 14th Amendment’s substantive provisions, such as the Equal Protection Clause. In Nev. Dep’t of Human Res. v. Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721 (2003), the Court held this standard was met by the family-member-care provision of the FMLA because it addressed gender discrimination related to family leave. The majority here, however, found no “widespread evidence of sex discrimination or sex stereotyping in the administration of sick leave,” and thus no Equal Protection basis for the provision.
Justice Ginsberg, in dissent, discussed the entire history of the FMLA and its focus on addressing gender discrimination in employee leave policies. One of the primary motivations for the self-care provision was to provide leave for women suffering from pregnancy-related illness and those recovering from pregnancy. Also important was mandating personal leave in addition to family leave so that employers would not have a new reason to discriminate against female employees. She thus found a sufficient basis for Congress to apply the FMLA to the states.
State employees in North Carolina are not hurt by this decision, however, because North Carolinahas waived its sovereign immunity for FMLA suits brought by state employees. See N.C. Gen. Stat. § 143-300.35(a)(3).
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