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Saturday, April 26, 2008
Law - U.S. Senate kills bill to right the wrongs of Ledbetter
Remember Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co ., the Supreme Court decision from last May, where, to quote Steven Greenhouse of the NYT, "the Supreme Court ruled that workers generally lose their right to sue for pay discrimination unless they file charges within 180 days of a specific event, like a boss giving a worker a smaller raise because of her sex. Establishing a pattern of discrimination over several years will no longer be possible."
Dahlia Lithwick of Slate has an article today that begins:
On Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have overturned a Supreme Court ruling that sharply limited pay-discrimination suits based on gender under Title VII. In Ledbetter v. Goodyear (2007), the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 margin, held that the clock for the statute of limitations on wage discrimination begins running when the employer first makes the decision to discriminate, and does not run for all the subsequent months—or in this case, years—that the disparate paychecks are mailed. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, found that the plaintiff in this case, Lilly Ledbetter, was time-barred from filing her discrimination suit because it took more than 180 days after she first got stiffed to discover that she was being stiffed on account of her gender. The court agreed her jury verdict should be overturned.See also this ILB entry from June 16, 2007.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 26, 2008 08:14 AM
Posted to General Law Related