## Facts

- A federal agency sued a media and financial-information company under Title VII, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, alleging systemic discrimination and retaliation against pregnant employees and employees returning from maternity leave.
- The agency pursued a pattern-or-practice theory, claiming the employer routinely reduced pay, demoted employees, diminished responsibilities, and marginalized employees after pregnancy announcements or maternity leave.
- The employer described its workplace as demanding and availability-driven, asserting that extended absences could affect assignments and advancement for business reasons unrelated to sex or pregnancy.
- On summary judgment, the employer relied heavily on expert statistical analysis indicating that employees returning from maternity leave, as a group, did not experience worse outcomes than employees taking comparably long non-maternity leaves, and in some measures received greater intended compensation increases.
- The agency offered anecdotal accounts and references to alleged biased comments or attitudes but did not submit competing statistical analysis to rebut the employer’s statistical showing.
- The motion addressed only the pattern-or-practice claim; individual employees’ separate discrimination and retaliation claims were not resolved in this ruling.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence would permit a reasonable factfinder to conclude that discrimination against pregnant employees and employees returning from maternity leave was the employer’s “standard operating procedure” under the Teamsters pattern-or-practice framework.
2. Whether anecdotal and remark-based evidence, without statistical rebuttal to the employer’s expert analysis, was sufficient to create a triable issue of systemic pregnancy discrimination under Title VII/PDA.

## Decision

- The court granted summary judgment for the employer on the pattern-or-practice claim.
- The court held the agency’s proof was insufficient to show a company-wide policy or regular practice of pregnancy discrimination, even if the record could support isolated instances of individual discrimination.
- The court credited the employer’s statistical evidence and treated the agency’s failure to offer competent statistical rebuttal as a key deficiency for a pattern-or-practice case.
- The court distinguished unlawful discrimination from adverse consequences flowing from a facially neutral workplace that rewards long hours and constant availability when those criteria are applied equally.
- The court left the remaining individual claims for further proceedings and directed the parties to confer on next steps.

## Legal Principles

- A Title VII pattern-or-practice claim requires proof that discrimination is the employer’s “standard operating procedure,” not sporadic or isolated acts.
- Pattern-or-practice proof commonly depends on strong statistical evidence, supported by anecdotal evidence; anecdotal incidents generally cannot substitute for missing or unrebutted statistical proof of class-wide disparities.
- Title VII/PDA prohibits adverse action because of pregnancy, but does not require an employer to abandon facially neutral performance criteria (e.g., commitment, long hours, availability) so long as they are applied without regard to sex or pregnancy.
- On summary judgment, where the defendant offers statistically supported evidence inconsistent with systemic discrimination, the plaintiff must produce evidence sufficient for a reasonable jury to find a regular discriminatory practice.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that the record, viewed most favorably to the agency, did not support a reasonable inference that pregnancy discrimination was a regular, company-wide practice, and it entered summary judgment against the pattern-or-practice claim while leaving individual employees’ claims to be addressed separately.


E.E.O.C. v. Bloomberg L.P., 778 F. Supp. 2d 458 (S.D.N.Y. 2011)