A lawsuit was filed yesterday that claims women in California receive less in workers’ compensation than their male counterparts. The suit claims this happens because of stereotypes about women which can lead to the diagnosis of so-called gender-related predisposed conditions. Women may receive reduced benefits or even no benefits because disability ratings related to women’s health issues are lower or may not even be considered a disability.

Three women and a labor union, Service Employees International Union, filed a class action suit against the state in the hopes of reforming the workers’ comp system.

The suit claims that many injuries or disabilities are dismissed or reduced because of gender-related factors like menopause. Other conditions that impact women, like breast cancer, are considered less disabling than similar illnesses in men and so can sometimes be dismissed or have their benefits reduced as well.

One of the women involved in the suit says that her doctor told her that many women her age suffer from carpal tunnel and reduced her benefits by a fifth. Another woman had a mastectomy after developing work-related breast cancer, and her doctor said she was not permanently impaired and could not receive impairment or disability benefits. The suit claims that if a woman had a mastectomy their impairment rating, according to American Medical Association guidelines, would be up to 5 percent, yet if a male the same age had to undergo a prostate removal because of cancer their impairment rating would be between 6 and 20 percent.

Christine Baker is the director of the Department of Industrial Relations, and says they do not agree with the claims filed against them and will defend themselves because they are false accusations. She says that they had been made aware of the examples named in the suit and had investigated them, but found that the examples sent by the plaintiffs did not show that the whole system was biased. She says she asked lawyers for more information about the incidents that might provide more evidence for such a system-wide problem, but the lawyers instead filed a suit.

The suit asks that the state’s system undergo a major overhaul and start training staff, monitoring staff, and even punishing staff if it is found that they are acting in a gender biased way.