Prometheus 6

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said that “current effects alone cannot breathe life into prior, uncharged discrimination.” ...

He admits it's discrimination. How about that.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read part of her dissent aloud (an unmistakable sign of anger), and the tone of her opinion showed how bitterly she differed with the majority. She asserted that the effects of pay discrimination can be relatively small at first, then become far more serious as subsequent raises are based on the original low pay, and that instances of pay inequities ought to be treated differently from other acts of discrimination. For one thing, she said, pay discrimination is often not uncovered until long after the fact.

The majority’s holding, she said, “is totally at odds with the robust protection against workplace discrimination Congress intended Title VII to secure.” She said the majority “does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination.”

“This is not the first time the Court has ordered a cramped interpretation of Title VII, incompatible with the statute’s broad remedial purpose,” she wrote. Her dissent was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer.

Justices Limit Discrimination Suits Over Pay
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, May 29 — The Supreme Court ruled today, in a case of considerable interest to companies and workers alike, that employers are protected from lawsuits over pay discrimination linked to gender or race when the claims are based on decisions made or acts committed by the employer years ago.

Voting 5 to 4 after apparently heated deliberations, the justices found in favor of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company and against Lilly M. Ledbetter, who worked for 19 years at the company’s plant in Gadsden, Ala., and was paid substantially less than men doing work at the same level.

The majority found against Ms. Ledbetter, saying she could not show that there had been intentional discrimination in the 180-day period before she complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in March 1998, shortly after she retired from the company following an unwanted transfer.

Goodyear’s argument that federal law protected the company from claims concerning discrimination that occurred before Sept. 26, 1997 — or 180 days before Ms. Ledbetter filed her complaint — was upheld.

Today’s ruling affirmed a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, which overturned a Federal District Court jury’s award to Ms. Ledbetter. The jury had awarded her more than $3 million in back pay and compensatory and punitive damages, but the judge lowered the amount to $360,000 because of limits imposed by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.