The Supreme Court heard arguments over whether a Georgia prosecutor’s office can defeat a former top aide’s pregnancy bias lawsuit with a legal defense it did not raise until years into the case.
Story Snapshot
- Jasmine Younge says she was fired from the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office about two weeks after telling her boss she was pregnant.
- Lower courts sided with the office of then-DA Paul Howard, a Democrat, and threw out her claims before trial.
- The office says she was the elected DA’s “personal staff,” a group the main federal job-bias law does not cover.
- The office did not list that defense in its formal answer and first raised it in 2022, according to court records.
- The justices heard the case but have not ruled; a decision is expected later in the Court’s term.
What The Supreme Court Is Weighing
On Monday, November 2, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Younge v. Fulton Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, No. 25-352. The question is about the rules of the game in a lawsuit. Federal court rules say a defendant must list its “affirmative defenses” in its first formal answer. An affirmative defense is a reason a defendant should win even if the other side’s claims are true. Younge says the office broke that rule, so it should not have been allowed to win on a defense it left out.
The defense comes from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the main federal law against job discrimination. Title VII does not protect elected officials or the “personal staff” they choose. Lower courts ruled that Younge fit that group, so her claims under the law were thrown out before trial. The justices are not deciding whether she was the victim of bias. They are deciding whether the office raised its defense too late.
The Facts Behind The Firing Dispute
Then-District Attorney Paul Howard, a Democrat who led the Atlanta-area office until 2021, hired Younge in April 2019. She was deputy chief of staff and director of policy and programs, earned a little more than $120,000 and was the office’s third in command, according to reports. On July 1, 2019, she told Howard she was pregnant. Court records say Howard then moved some of her duties to others and allegedly left her out of meetings. He fired her on July 15, 2019.
The office denies that pregnancy had anything to do with it. It says Younge had “serious performance issues” and drew many complaints from co-workers. It says Howard decided at the end of June 2019 to fire her after seeing her mistreat a staff attorney, a day or two before she told him about the pregnancy. Younge sued in February 2020. The office did not raise the personal-staff defense in its 2020 response or its 2021 answer. It first made the argument in 2022, when it asked the court to end the case before trial.
Why Conservatives Should Care About The Rules
Younge’s side says the rules should cut both ways. A worker who wants to add a new claim late in a case must formally ask the court. She argues a government office should have to do the same before it adds a new defense. Her lawyers also say offices with skilled legal teams gain the most from a loose rule, while ordinary workers may not know the fine print.
The office says nothing unfair happened. It argues that a mistake that hurts no one should not decide a case, and that Younge could not have done anything differently if she had known about the defense sooner. A federal judge in Atlanta and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals both found that the late timing did not unfairly hurt her, in part because evidence gathered in 2021 already covered the issue. West Virginia and 16 other states backed the office, warning that a strict rule would burden state agencies that have only 21 days to answer a lawsuit.
What Comes Next
The justices will decide the case in private, and a written ruling usually takes months. If Younge wins, her case could go back to the lower courts. If the office wins, the dismissal stands. Either way, the ruling will set the rule for every federal courtroom on how late a defendant can bring up a defense it left out.
For readers who want government held to the same rules as everyone else, this case is worth watching. It asks a simple question with big reach: when a powerful office misses a deadline, does the miss count?
Sources:
justiceatwork.com, ajc.com, law.cornell.edu, supremecourt.gov, ajc.com