By Julie Kay, From Daily Business Review

A Miami-Dade County Court judge is in hot water for allegedly denying trial breaks for an attorney and nursing mother to express her breast milk.

Marissa Altman Glatzer, an 11-year assistant public defender, said Judge Fred Seraphin last week refused her request to take short breaks every three to four hours during trial. She has a 5-month-old daughter and said she must pump her breast milk twice during the workday to feed her child and avoid pain.

The judge continued the case, and another assistant public defender will be assigned to it.

Miami-Dade Public Defender Carlos Martinez said he has ordered an audiotape of the hearing and will decide afterward whether to respond. But he said he’s not happy with how his employee was treated.

“Ms. Glatzer was courteous and professional,” Martinez said. “She advised the judge a day before the trial that she would need a break every three hours. Her reasonable request was met with a level of insensitivity and inflexibility that is inexplicable.”

Seraphin denied the incident occurred as described by Glatzer and told the Daily Business Review it was a miscommunication. He did not go into detail and suggested interviewing Glatzer.

“I was raised by a single mother with sisters,” he added.

Seraphin is Florida’s first Haitian-American judge and a former long-time Miami-Dade assistant public defender. He was appointed to the bench in 2001 by Gov. Jeb Bush and ran unopposed for re-election in 2010. Seraphin is up for re-election next year.

Labor and employment attorney Alison Smith of Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman in Fort Lauderdale, who is not involved in the case, was asked about the issue.

She said Seraphin’s actions could be construed as illegal under federal law. In 2010, the Affordable Care Act amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to require employers to provide a nursing mother reasonable break time to express breast milk and a private place other than a bathroom to do so for a year after childbirth.

“Companies are very good about following the policy,” Smith said. “We never had a situation where a client didn’t do this … especially since there’s a federal law.”

Most major employers have set aside special rooms for nursing mothers. When Shook, Hardy & Bacon renovated its Miami office, it added nursing rooms on every floor along with refrigerators for milk storage. Holland & Knight also has “Mother’s Rooms” to be used by attorneys, staffers and visitors.

The Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building, where the hearing took place, has no space set aside for nursing mothers.

The incident took place June 15 while Glatzer was attending a hearing with an assistant public defender she was helping train. Seraphin was setting trial for the next day. That’s when Glatzer told the judge she would need a 15-minute break every three to four hours.

Before she could get her entire request out, Glatzer said Seraphin interrupted and said he refused to give trial breaks.

“He said, ‘Just get another attorney to try the case,’ ” she recalled. “I said, ‘I can’t get another attorney.’ He said, ‘I don’t care. It’s not my business how your office assigns cases.’ ”

Glatzer said she later went to Seraphin’s chambers to request an appointment with him to discuss the situation and was turned down by the judicial assistant. The next day, she found out the trial had been continued.

Glatzer said she made the same request of two other county court judges. Both agreed, one offered his chambers, and the other suggested the jury room.

“I think it’s about people being treated like human beings,” she said. “It’s common decency. I’m really in shock.”

It’s not the first time Seraphin has been abrupt with an attorney, Glatzer said. He denied a request by another female attorney for a quick break to make a phone call to check on her child care.

Glatzer informed her supervisors about the situation, including Martinez and the general counsel’s office. All were concerned and supportive, she said.

Courthouse blogs and women’s groups have been critical of Seraphin.

“Women lawyers shouldn’t have to choose between breast-feeding or practicing law,” said Ileana Cruz of the Miami-Dade County attorney’s office and president of the Miami-Dade chapter of the Florida Association for Women Lawyers. The group “is committed to working with the local bar to find ways to change the current mindset that has led to open discrimination against breast-feeding mothers.”

A comment by an attorney on the Justice Building Blog recalled suffering an eye infection several years ago.

“Every judge that I asked for a continuance or other accommodation granted it particularly after I showed them my eye which was brutal-looking,” the post said. “The only judge who refused to do anything nice or decent was Seraphin. This is one guy who time has come to leave the building.”

IMAGE: Miami-Dade County Judge Fred Seraphin, 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida

AM Holt

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