A Pregnant UPS Worker Forced Into Unpaid Leave Goes to the Supreme Court

If you’re a woman with a physically demanding job and you get pregnant, should your employer make accommodations so you can continue to do your job? What if they already make accommodations for employees who are injured or disabled? Is there a law that says not doing so is illegal? These issues are at the heart of a U.S. Supreme Court case that will be heard on Wednesday, Dec. 3. It involves United Parcel Service and a former delivery driver named Peggy Young.

Young started working at a Maryland UPS center in 1999. In 2002 she became a part-time delivery driver, picking up packages from an airport shuttle and delivering them to homes and businesses before 8:30 a.m. (In the afternoons, she had a second job delivering flowers.) Although UPS required all drivers to be able to “lift, lower, push, pull, leverage and manipulate” packages up to 70 pounds, according to Young’s lawsuit, most of the packages Young delivered were envelopes and lightweight packages, usually weighing no more than 20 lbs.