New Jersey Lawyers BlogAppellate Division Issues First Published Opinion on the New Jersey Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
New Jersey employment law has long been in the forefront of protecting employees’ civil rights 
and prohibiting discrimination in the workplace. While Congress did not pass Title VII until 1964, the Legislature passed the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination in 1945. Since then the LAD has been expanded to protect more types of workers from discrimination because of who they are and give them a wider array of rights and protections. Most recently, in 2014 the Legislature passed the New Jersey Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, again which amended the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, this time to prohibit discrimination against pregnant workers, and to require reasonable accommodation for physical arising from pregnancy, recovery from childbirth, and breastfeeding. It prohibited employers from penalizing employees for being pregnant.
The Appellate Division of New Jersey’s Superior Court recently issued the first published opinion interpreting the New Jersey Pregnant Workers Fairness Act in the case of Kathleen J. Delanoy v. Township of Ocean.