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Ledbetter loses pay discrimination case
May 29, 2007 by Ross Runkel at LawMemo
Title VII's statute of limitations begins when a discriminatory pay decision was made and communicated to the employee, and does not start over with each later paycheck.
So says the US Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision announced this morning.
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co (US Supreme Court 05/29/2007)
Lilly Ledbetter claimed her employer paid her a smaller salary than it paid male co-workers because of her sex. Her periodic paychecks were based on annual salary reviews, which she claimed were made with discriminatory intent. A jury awarded damages to Ledbetter based on a series of salary decisions going back 19 years. The 11th Circuit reversed and ordered that Ledbetter's complaint be dismissed. The US Supreme Court affirmed.
The Supreme Court held that Title VII's statute of limitation period (180 or 300 days) begins to run when "each allegedly discriminatory pay decision was made and communicated to her." The Court rejected Ledbetter's argument that each subsequent paycheck was a separate act of discrimination, and her argument that the most recent decision was unlawful because it carried forward intentionally discriminatory disparities from prior years.
My view: This is the correct decision, following the reasoning that I predicted back in November.
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Editor: Ross Runkel, Professor of Law Emeritus. email Ross@LawMemo.Com, Phone 503-399-8028. Copyright LawMemo, Inc.
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