South Florida Personal Injury Blog

In January of this year, Fort Lauderdale injury attorney Alitowski says the United States Congress enacted the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which amended the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The changes expand workplace protections for people whose employers have discriminated against them without their knowledge, according to Broward personal injury lawyer Alitowski.

President Obama signed the bill into law on January 29, 2009, shortly after he was inaugurated as President. The law was passed in response to the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in 2007, a controversial decision by the high court, notes Broward accident lawyer Alitowski. In that case the plaintiff, Lilly Ledbetter, began working at the Goodyear Tire Co. in Alabama. In 1998 Ledbetter sued Goodyear claiming that she had been discriminated against on the basis of her sex. At the time she filed suit, Ledbetter, who had started at the same pay as several of her male colleagues, was being paid $3,700 per month compared her male employees who earned between $4,200 and $5,200 per month. She alleged – and proved – that the disparity was because she is a woman.

On appeal, the Supreme Court did not address the issue of whether Ledbetter had suffered discrimination, but instead looked at the issue of whether the Civil Rights Act allowed Ledbetter to sue Goodyear or whether the suit was barred by the statute of limitations. The relevant provision in the law stated that a plaintiff had to file a suit against her employee within 180 days after the alleged unlawful practice occurred. Goodyear argued, and several members of the Supreme Court agreed, that the 180 day clock should have started from the point where the Goodyear Company started making discriminatory decisions about pay increases. Since Ledbetter did not allege that the discrimination occurred in 1998, her suit was untimely and her case was dismissed. In a dissent she read from the bench, Justice Ginsburg argued that the Supreme Court should have held that “knowingly carrying past discrimination forward” should continue the clock for statute of limitations purposes because pay discrimination often occurs in small increments over large periods of time. The Lilly Ledbetter act was a direct response to the Supreme Court’s majority decision. The law adopted Justice Ginsburg’s position by amending the Civil Rights Act to reset the 180 day statute of limitations period with each discriminatory paycheck. The law was brought up several times during the 2008 presidential campaign. Generally, opponents of the bill argued that its enactment would harm business interests.