Mom sues, claiming Daley Center did not provide lactation room

A woman says she wanted to serve on a jury but couldn't because there was nowhere in the Daley Center to pump her breast milk.

Now, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on her behalf.

Cook County says it was a simple mistake and not a slight against nursing mothers.

Judith Miller, herself an attorney, says she was eager to perform her civic duty when she was called for jury service at the Daley Center last October. Miller was on maternity leave, her son just eleven weeks old, and needed to pump her breast milk for storage every three hours.

She says she learned online that the Daley Center has a lactation room for nursing mothers, but when she showed up on the 17th floor juror holding area, she was told the room doesn't exist.

"The clerk that I spoke with had never heard of the room. He actually offered me the men's room to pump in,” Miller said. "That was absurd. It was not even clear to me how that would work."

Unable to get a clear answer, Miller waited three hours before she had to leave.

"Eventually I had to go. I was just out of time,” Miller said. "It is in fact the case that the lack of proper facilities presented me from doing my civic duty."

Miller wrote an op-ed in the Tribune about what happened to her at the Daley Center. The ACLU saw her story and is now filing suit on her behalf under the Illinois Human Rights Act.

"Nobody should be denied access to a public space, to a courthouse, just because they need to feed their child,” said ACLU attorney Amy Meek.

Meeks says the lawsuit is a shot across the bow to Cook County and other court systems across the state.

"So often there's just not an awareness of these issues. There's not an awareness to make this space available,” Meeks said.

But a spokesman for Cook County chief judge Tim Evans says in fact there are two separate lactation rooms at the Daley Center: one for jurors and one for the public -- and nursing mothers can use the children's rooms at all the suburban courthouses.

It appears the employee was misinformed, and staff is being trained to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"I'm filing this complaint because I don't want this to happen to anybody else,” Miller said.