applying doctrine to longstanding seniority system that gave continuing effect to earlier discriminatory maternity leave policy
How later courts described this case
- applying doctrine to longstanding seniority system that gave continuing effect to earlier discriminatory maternity leave policy
- “the MCAD ‘has been charged with the task of combating discrimination in the Commonwealth’ ”
- the Supreme Judicial Court may consider analogous federal discrimination statutes for purposes of interpretation, but it is not bound by interpretations of the federal statute in construing our state statute
- continuing violation in employment discrimination
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Abrogated on other grounds by Clifton v. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, 445 Mass. 611 (2005)
Comm'n Against Discrimination, 406 Mass. 515, 524 (1990), abrogated on other grounds by Clifton v. Massachusetts Bay Transp. Auth., 445 Mass. 611, 620
The opinion
Greaney, J.
(concurring). I join in the result but think the more proper inquiry might be whether the aspect of the seniority system under consideration is “bona fide.” The exception contained in G. L. c. 151B, § 4 (17) (<z), protects only a “bona fide seniority system” from scrutiny under the provisions of G. L. c. 15IB, which prohibits discrimination be *528 cause of sex. A bona fide seniority system would appear to mean, at the very least, a system that does not systematically “evade the purposes of [the statute].” G. L. c. 15IB, § 4 (17) (a). But the provisions of the plaintiff’s collective bargaining agreement, incorporating the school committee’s express policy, manifest a discriminatory intent, cf. School Comm. of Braintree v. Massachusetts Comm’n Against Discrimination, 377 Mass. 424, 429 (1979) (discriminatory intent “may be inferred from the mere fact of differences in treatment”), selectively burdening those members of the community who bear children, by requiring women, in the first instance, to take a leave of absence from their jobs, and then, in the second instance, to return to those jobs with considerably diminished status. If a systematic evasion of the purposes of G. L. c. 15IB exists, the seniority system cannot be bona fide.