Though DaimlerChrysler stepped up its health coverage to include contraceptives a month after the filing of this action in June 2002, the court has ruled that the company may yet owe the employees for the expenses that they incurred prior to the change in the health plan.

Named plaintiff Diana Cooley, an employee at the Fenton, Missouri, plant, alleges that she was diagnosed with uterine bleeding and was prescribed DepoProvera around 1996. While the drug is a contraceptive, she needed it as part of her treatment for her condition. Because the company's health plan did not cover DepoProvera, she allegedly had to buy the drug herself at a price of $90 every three months until the company began to pay for it in mid-2002. In addition, she allegedly had to pay for her daughters' contraceptives.

The number of women who may be eligible to participate in the action could be 16,000 or more. This issue has been simmering in the auto industry, and others. After negotiating with the United Auto Workers on the subject, Ford Motor Company began providing its employees with coverage for prescription contraceptives in January 2000. In December 2000, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled in the case of two nurses that a health plan that excluded contraception illegally discriminated against the women on the basis of their gender. The Commission has adopted that position as its policy on the issue. And in June 2001, a federal judge in Seattle ruled that the Bartell pharmacy chain discriminated against a female employee by failing to provide her with prescription contraceptives.