## Facts

- Union Pacific provided employee health benefits through plans negotiated under collective-bargaining agreements.
- The plans excluded coverage for contraceptives when “used for the sole purpose of preventing conception,” including prescription contraceptives, over-the-counter prophylactics, and surgical options.
- The plans covered contraceptives when prescribed for non-contraceptive medical purposes.
- The plans covered various preventive treatments, including some addressing conditions unique to men.
- Female employees of child-bearing age brought a Title VII class action, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), alleging that the contraceptive exclusion unlawfully discriminated based on sex and pregnancy-related conditions.

## Issues

1. Whether the PDA requires employer-sponsored health plans to cover contraception used to prevent pregnancy as a “related medical condition” of pregnancy.
2. Whether a blanket exclusion of contraceptive coverage constitutes sex discrimination under Title VII when the exclusion applies to both male and female employees.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment for the plaintiffs and entered judgment for Union Pacific.
- The court held the PDA does not require contraceptive coverage because contraception used to prevent pregnancy is not a “medical condition” related to “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.”
- The court held the exclusion was not disparate treatment under Title VII because it excluded contraceptives for both women and men on the same terms.
- The court rejected reliance on EEOC guidance favoring contraceptive coverage where it conflicted with the statute’s plain language.
- The court did not resolve a separate disparate-impact theory, treating the case as a disparate-treatment challenge to the plan’s terms.

## Legal Principles

- The PDA extends Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination to discrimination “because of or on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions,” but does not reach every practice connected to reproductive capacity.
- Contraception used to prevent pregnancy is not, by itself, a pregnancy-related “medical condition” within the PDA’s text.
- A benefits plan exclusion that applies equally to male and female employees is not facial sex discrimination under Title VII, even if one sex uses the excluded benefit more often.
- Agency guidance receives no deference where inconsistent with unambiguous statutory language.

## Conclusion

The Eighth Circuit held that excluding contraceptives from an employer health plan did not violate Title VII or the PDA where contraception was treated as outside the PDA’s “related medical conditions” and the exclusion applied equally to men and women, defeating a disparate-treatment claim.


In re Union Pac. R.R. Emp. Pracs. Litig., 479 F.3d 936 (8th Cir. 2007)