Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court now recognizes claims for “associational discrimination” against employers who provide family health insurance and who fire healthy employees with very sick spouses when the firing is motivated by a hope to reduce health insurance premiums.
The case Flagg v AliMed Inc. involved a worker whose wife had a brain tumor. The Court found an implied and protectable right not to be fired because a family member developed a serious medical condition that involved considerable medical expense.
Such cases can now be brought under Massachusetts’ Anti Discrimination law