Posted on 19-Jun-07 by The Timekeeper

On May 29, 2007, the Supreme Court took a very narrow view of the statute of limitations on filing pay discrimination lawsuits. In the decision, the Court decided that a female former Goodyear supervisor was barred by a statute of limitations from suing the company for paying her less than it paid men for the same job over most of her 20 year tenure with the company. (Ledbetter, Lilly v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.)

Now Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate are poised to pass legislation that will essentially overturn that decision. According to legal experts, if the bill passes President Bush will be under a great deal of pressure to sign it into law.

In a nutshell, the Court decided by a 5-4 vote that the statute of limitation for filing a claim in such cases was either 180 or 300 days, depending on the state where the violation took place. Further, a case “is triggered when a discrete unlawful practice takes place.” Each paycheck is considered a “discrete unlawful practice” for the purposes of deciding the statute of limitations.

There’s a terrific analysis of the case here, courtesy of Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism. Go ahead and give it a read. I’ll wait here for you to get back.

Okay, all done? Well, from reading that analysis, it seems to me the main issue is whether each paycheck constitutes a “discrete unlawful act” or whether they are “repeated conduct” as in the Supreme Court’s 2002 decision in the case of National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan (a “hostile work environment” case), where retroactive claims are allowed to some extent.

So, what do you think?

In this day and age, are employers still paying women and minorities less than non-minority men? (Personally, I think most are not, but some almost certainly are.)

Joceyln Samuels, of the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, asserts that the Supreme Court decision encourages employers to “hide the ball and try to disguise discrimination rather than to uncover it and address it.” Do you agree?

Charles Craver, a law professor at George Washington University, believes discrimination “tends to happen inadvertently.” I’m not sure how someone could accidentally discriminate, but what do you think? Is it possible?

And if we agree that some companies are discriminating unfairly against women and minorities, what sort of remedies should be available to the aggrieved employees? What of employees (like Ledbetter) who don’t find out for years that they’re being paid less than their peers?

A lot of food for thought here.

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