The Center for WorkLife Law (at the University of California Hastings) reports that charges of family responsibilities discrimination, or FRD, have increased 400 percent in the past 10 years. And, such suits are said to succeed 50 percent of the time, compared to 20 percent for total discrimination cases. Why are these plaintiffs winning? "The notion that children need and deserve time with their parents and that family members need to care for ill children, spouses, and parents is widely shared from right to left," says the center's executive director.

The plaintiff is usually a woman who has been fired or denied promotion because she has small children or is caring for an ailing family member. Of course, her employer claims legitimate motives for its actions, and the woman must try to show that the real reason was bias. Actually, FRD suits aren't new: What is now seen as the first case was decided by the Supreme Court in 1971. In Phillips v. Martin-Marietta Corp., justices ruled that treating female parents of small children differently from male parents violated Title VII of federal Civil Rights Law.

Some women are still required to show that male colleagues who are parents or caregivers were treated better. But other suits are going forward based on the charge of gender stereotyping, with no need to show how similarly situated men were treated. A Massachusetts court recently allowed a plaintiff to proceed by arguing gender stereotyping. As often happens in such cases, the woman was repeatedly passed over for promotion after she gave birth; promotions went to other women with older children or no children. Although the decision maker was also a woman, she made enough comments about women's inability to perform well as employees and mothers to convince a judge that the plaintiff might have a case.

A lengthy study of the careers of working women after they have children points to two serious problems for these employees: U.S. families receive much less governmental support, in terms of paid leave for both parents, than many in Europe; and expectations both for employees and for parents have increased dramatically in the last decade. What can employers do to help with this problem (and avoid FRD suits)? Maintain as flexible a workplace as possible, especially through part-time employment and job-sharing.

Tip: Train supervisors to avoid drawing conclusions about what a caregiver or parent is willing or able to do at work--such as assuming that a young mother won't want a more demanding job or won't be able to travel extensively.