Alaska Employment Law

The U S Supreme Court today issued its opinion in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc. , 2007 WL 1528298 (May 29, 2007).   Ledbetter claimed that Goodyear had discriminatorily denied her pay raises.  Goodyear defended against Ledbetter’s Title VII claim, in part, on the timeliness of Ledbetter’s EEOC charge.   Ledbetter won before the jury, but lost, on timeliness grounds, before the 11th Circuit. 

The Supreme Court, per Justice Alito, affirmed the 11th Circuit.  Justices Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter, and Breyer dissented.  The majority’s holding is summarized thus, in the Syllabus:

 A new violation does not occur, and a new charging period does not commence, upon the occurrence of subsequent nondiscriminatory acts that entail adverse effects resulting from the past discrimination. But if an employer engages in a series of separately actionable intentionally discriminatory acts, then a fresh violation takes place when each act is committed. Ledbetter makes no claim that intentionally discriminatory conduct occurred during the charging period or that discriminatory decisions occurring before that period were not communicated to her. She argues simply that Goodyear’s nondiscriminatory conduct during the charging period gave present effect to discriminatory conduct outside of that period. But current effects alone cannot breathe life into prior, uncharged discrimination.

Note: Paul Mollica’s Daily Developments in EEO Law is consistently well-written and insightful on federal civil rights cases.  He covers Ledbetter in his May 30th entry.

Update: Barb Jones adds: Another article discussing the Ledbetter case and the pay implications can be found at http://www.abanet.org/labor/hot_topic/ledbetter.shtml.