Background on the Act
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is an important legislative “fix” to a May 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.), which severely limited the ability of victims of pay discrimination to sue and recover damages under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Ledbetter, the Court ruled (5-4) that Lilly Ledbetter could receive no recourse from her employer, even though for years she was discriminatorily paid less than her male colleagues. The Court said that Ledbetter had filed her discrimination complaint too late, and calculated the law’s 180-day deadline to sue from the day Ledbetter received her last discriminatory raise, rather than – as the law had previously made clear – from the day she received her last discriminatory paycheck.
Why This “Fix” is Needed
The Ledbetter decision is fundamentally unfair to victims of pay discrimination - and it ignores the realities of the workplace. Employees generally don’t know enough about what their co-workers earn, or how pay decisions are made, to file a complaint shortly after a discriminatory pay decision is made. However, without that knowledge, the Supreme Court has declared that victims of ongoing pay discrimination have no claim – regardless of how egregious the discrimination is.
Without this “fix,” the impact of the Court’s decision will be widespread, affecting pay discrimination cases under Title VII involving women and racial and ethnic minorities, as well as cases under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
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