By Erica Shelley Nelson and Brennen Johnson
In Hall v. BNSF Railway Company, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington found that a homosexual male employee stated a valid gender discrimination claim against his employer for denying health benefits to his husband. The Court refused to dismiss what it determined to be a valid gender discrimination claim where the male employee and his male partner were legally married and BNSF provided coverage for the male spouses of female employees.
Michael Hall, a locomotive engineer, married his husband on January 21, 2013. Starting early that year, he began repeatedly requesting that BNSF cover his husband’s health care costs. BNSF refused, stating that its insurance agent operated under the policy that “marriage is one man, one woman.” Operating under this policy, BNSF provided health care benefits for spouses of many of its employees, including the male spouses of female locomotive engineers, but not for the spouses of homosexual employees.
Hall filed his lawsuit against BNSF in 2014. In his complaint he argued that BNSF violated Title VII by discriminating against him on the basis of sex. To support his claim, he pointed out that he and his husband were legally married and that if he had been a female married to his husband, then BNSF would have provided spousal health benefits. As such, he argued, BNSF discriminated against him on the basis of gender.
BNSF responded by arguing that Hall’s argument failed to state a legal claim. Specifically, the company argued that Hall was really alleging a claim of sexual orientation discrimination, not gender discrimination, which is not covered in Title VII.
Although it often can be difficult to distinguish gender discrimination claims from claims based solely on sexual orientation when the plaintiff who is making the claim is homosexual, the Court determined that this case qualified as a gender discrimination case under Title VII. Addressing BNSF’s argument that the claim addresses only sexual orientation discrimination, the Court explained:
This reading not only ignores the plain language of the… complaint, it improperly restricts the class of employees affected by the policy at issue in which plaintiff Michael Hall is a member. But a careful reading… demonstrates that Plaintiff alleges disparate treatment based on his sex, not his sexual orientation, specifically that he (as a male who married a male was treated differently in comparison to his female coworkers who also married males.
The Court went on to explain that other courts had come to the same conclusion that “nothing in Title VII suggests that Congress intended to confine the benefits of that statute to heterosexual employees alone.” Instead, Congress intended Title VII to protect all employees from gender discrimination, regardless of sexual orientation. The Court did not consider the ultimate merits of Hall’s claims, but did determine that he had satisfied his initial burden of stating a plausible claim of gender discrimination.
Since the legalization of same-sex marriage in Washington in 2012, this issue, and similar issues involving the rights of same-sex couples in the workplace, will continue to arise. While Title VII does not cover discrimination claims based on sexual orientation, the Washington State Law Against Discrimination does cover sexual orientation discrimination. Also, even though “sexual orientation” is not a protected class under Title VII, employees similar to Hall, have been successful in arguing that same-sex harassment is actionable if it is “because of” sex. As a result, an employee who is experiencing sexual harassment from a member of the same gender may not be foreclosed from bringing a federal Title VII claim, if the employee can show that he or she was targeted because of their gender.
