1. Geduldig v. Aiello, (1974)
2. Facts: California had a disability insurance plan that did not cover pregnancy.
3. Procedural Posture: Unknown.
4. Issue: Whether failing to provide disability insurance for pregnancy is a violation of equal protection.
5. Holding: No.
6. Majority Reasoning: The classification was not based on gender, as such. Thus, the rational basis standard is applicable. Although California has chosen to provide disability insurance, it has not chosen to pass on the expense of pregnancy to the whole state of employees. Under equal protection, the state can choose to do things one at a time. The state has a legitimate interest in keeping the cost of insurance down. There is no invidious discrimination here because the lawmakers have divided the state into two classifications, pregnant females, and non-pregnant persons. As such, both males and females are benefitted.
7. Dissent Reasoning: Dissimilar treatment of men and women based on physical characteristics tied to one sex is sex discrimination. Thus, the standard should have been the strict scrutiny of Frontiero. The state’s interest in preserving the fiscal integrity of the insurance program can nt render the states’ use of a suspect classification constitutional.
8. Notes: In Caban v. Mohammed, the court invalidated a New York law granting the mother but not the father of an illegitimate child the right to block the child’s adoption by withholding consent, by using the “intermediate” sex discrimination standard. The classifications were overbroad generalizations based on stereotypes of unwed mothers being closer to children than their fathers, and did not further the state’s interest in promoting adoption. However, the dissent [Stewart] stated that men and women were not similarly situated here, and so there was no equal protection violation. Also, in Parham v. Hughes, Stewart made the same analysis (in the majority this time) to reject a sex discrimination suit on a Georgia law that did not allow an illegitimate father the bring a wrongful death action for the death of his illegitimate child, reasoning that mothers and fathers of illegitimate children are not similarly situated.
