The fallout from the Johnson Controls decision has been that many women have been working in jobs that expose them to toxins. The U.S. Supreme Court did acknowledge in its holding that tort liability might result from its decision, but that such liability was often used as a guise or cover for gender discrimination.

However, 14 years after the decision, women who were held to be entitled to the high-risk jobs are now suing their employers for the birth defects in their children.

For example, IBM faced several suits from employees and their children against it for defects allegedly tied to production-line toxins.96 The position of many of the employers is that even if evidence existed linking the toxins to birth defects, the women took the jobs with knowledge about the risk and agreed to that risk. How can employers, legislators, and public policy specialists reconcile antidiscrimination laws and these risks of exposure?