## Facts

- The Maple School District provided teachers health insurance under a collective bargaining agreement.
- The agreement included a health-insurance nonduplication clause requiring a “married teacher whose spouse is eligible for family coverage” through the spouse’s employer to choose either the district policy or the spouse’s policy, but not both.
- Married teachers with spouses eligible for family coverage were thus denied dual coverage and had to elect one plan.
- Single teachers with other available coverage were not required to make a similar election and could maintain dual coverage.
- Several teachers filed complaints alleging the policy discriminated on the basis of marital status in violation of the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act (WFEA).
- The Labor & Industry Review Commission (LIRC) concluded the policy did not violate the WFEA’s marital-status protections.
- On judicial review, the circuit court and court of appeals reversed LIRC and held the policy unlawful.
- LIRC sought review in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the WFEA’s prohibition on marital-status discrimination permits an employer to impose a health-insurance nonduplication requirement only on married employees whose spouses have family coverage available.
2. Whether health insurance benefits are expressly or implicitly exempt from the WFEA’s marital-status discrimination provisions.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals.
- The Court held the nonduplication policy constituted marital-status discrimination prohibited by the WFEA.
- The Court rejected any express or implied exemption for health-insurance benefits from the WFEA’s marital-status protections.
- LIRC’s contrary interpretation was set aside.

## Legal Principles

- The WFEA’s ban on discrimination “because of marital status” applies to terms, conditions, and privileges of employment, including fringe benefits such as health insurance, absent a statutory exception.
- A policy that imposes a disadvantage only when an employee is married (e.g., conditioning coverage on a spouse’s eligibility for other coverage) is discrimination based on marital status when similarly situated unmarried employees are not burdened.
- The WFEA must be construed liberally to effectuate its remedial purpose; courts should not narrow protections through implied exclusions.
- Where the legislature creates specific statutory exceptions (e.g., for certain age-related distinctions in insurance) but not for marital status, courts should not infer an unstated marital-status exception.

## Conclusion

The court held that a collectively bargained health-insurance nonduplication clause that forces only married employees to forgo dual coverage because of a spouse’s available benefits violates the WFEA’s prohibition on marital-status discrimination, and that health insurance is not exempt from that prohibition.


Braatz v. Labor & Indus. Rev. Comm'n, 496 N.W.2d 597 (Wis. 1993)