JPMorgan Chase to pay $5 mn to settle paternity leave dispute

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JPMorgan Chase just had to cough up $5 million to settle a case alleging that the corporation refused to give its male employees the same chance as its female employees to attend to their new-borns.

According to a Marketwatch report, the settlement is believed to be the largest amount ever paid for a parental-leave bias case. This case could also make other firms question and review their own family leave policies.

The settlement amount will be distributed among all the male employees who felt they faced discrimination vis-à-vis the paid leave allotted to them by virtue of being primary caregivers.

The case goes back to 2017, when Derek Rotondo, one of the firm’s employee, was preparing for the birth of his second child. He had sought a 16-week paid leave by virtue of being a primary caregiver.

Notably, Chase had just expanded its paid parental leaves from 12 to 16 weeks, a few months before Rotondo sought his offs.

The company’s human resources representative, however, told Rotondo that only women are considered to be primary caregivers. Therefore, if he wanted such leaves, he would have to submit documents stating his wife is “medically incapable” of taking care of the infant. He was finally granted only two weeks’ leave. Thereafter, he filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Later, JPMorgan Chase granted him the full 16-week off and also clarified that its parental leave policy was not gendered.

Not satisfied with the deal, Rotondo took up the fight for a larger cause. He approached the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to make sure that no other father was discriminated against either.

This is not the first time that a fight for equal parental leaves has been taken to the court. In 2018, Estee Lauder had to shell out more than $1 million to settle a similar lawsuit. In 2015, Time Warner also had to settle a similar case filed by a CNN journalist who had sought a change in its leave policy to make it gender-neutral.