Ellsworth woman wins NYC suit Right to breast-feed in public vindicated

Until recently, it never occurred to Lass King that breast-feeding her infant son in public would cause such a stir.

King, a manager at the Grasshopper Shop in Ellsworth, said she’s often on the go and doesn’t always have the option of finding a private place to nurse her child.

But a business trip to New York last August opened King’s eyes to the reality that not everyone is comfortable with a breast-feeding mother.

King was visiting the showroom of Fossil Inc., a Texas-based retailer with a store in Manhattan that specializes in watches and jewelry, when her then-8-week-old son, Cody, began to cry from hunger.

So she instinctively turned her back and began nursing, only to be approached by an employee who told King she would have to leave.

“I was humiliated,” King said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “I think there are people out there who think that mothers don’t have the right to nurse in public, but I think I do, and the law supports me.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union announced Tuesday that King had won a settlement in a discrimination lawsuit she filed against Fossil Inc. after the August 2006 incident.

While the financial terms of the deal were not announced and King declined to reveal the details, she said the suit was never about monetary gain.

“The important part for me was to point out that this wasn’t OK,” she said. “It was a very humiliating experience, and I wanted to speak out to that. I don’t want this to happen to other women.”

King works with buyers from all over the country in her position with the Grasshopper Shop, a clothing and accessories boutique with four locations in Maine, and she said her job often requires travel.

After her son was born at the beginning of last summer, King didn’t think twice about bringing him to Manhattan during her visit to Fossil Inc. And when it was time to breast-feed, she didn’t foresee any problems.

“I was being discreet about it,” she explained. “My shirt was covering my breast, with my back to the room. I have had people who seemed uncomfortable on occasion, but I’ve never had anyone say anything.”

Not only did someone say something to King, they told her not to come back as long as she planned on breast-feeding, a request she said was like adding insult to injury.

“That’s the part that really bothered me, that they wouldn’t allow me to come back,” she said.

So King decided to do something about it.

“It was less about me and more about defending my child,” she said.

King contacted the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed a discrimination claim on her behalf. According to New York state law, a mother has the right to breast-feed “in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be.”

Galen Sherwin, director of the NYCLU’s Reproductive Rights Project, said King’s case was more about publicity than financial compensation.

“I think this happens a lot more frequently than people realize,” Sherwin said Tuesday by telephone. “This is the third case in the last year that we’ve been involved with.”

According to a news release from the NYCLU dated Tuesday, Fossil cooperated immediately when the company was approached with the discrimination suit.

“We are pleased that Fossil’s management was willing to use this as an opportunity to update its policies and educate its staff on the right to breast-feed,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in the news release.

King said she is satisfied with the outcome of the case and added that the Grasshopper Shop still works with Fossil.

“The last time I went to the showroom [a few months ago], everyone was very friendly to me,” she said.