Court Limits Suits on Pay Discrimination

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday limited workers' ability to sue employers for pay discrimination that results from decisions made years earlier.

The court, in a 5-4 ruling, said that employers would otherwise find it difficult to defend against claims "arising from employment decisions that are long past."

The case concerned how to apply a 180-day deadline for complaining about discriminatory pay decisions under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Lilly Ledbetter sued Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., claiming that after 19 years at the company's Gadsden, Ala., plant, she was making $6,000 a year less than the lowest-paid man doing the same work.

Ledbetter claimed the disparity existed for years and was primarily a result of her gender. A jury agreed, but an appeals court overturned the verdict because she had waited too long to begin her lawsuit.

The deadline set in the law means nothing if employees can reach back years to claim discrimination, the company argued to the court.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, agreed that Ledbetter's claim was untimely.

The decision broke along ideological lines, with the court's four liberal justices dissenting.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who once led the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, sided with Goodyear.

Back in the 80’s, the high tech companies looked for a way to avoid these suits from female electronic technicians who were new to the industry. The company I worked for cane up with a novel idea. They created the “quartile” system. Job levels were pay limited. So in effect in theory, it looked like the women were being paid in line with guys who were border line engineers. But in reality, they just stopped giving us raises.

"But in reality, they just stopped giving us raises"

Doesn't it seem that EVERY Liberal brainstorm, from Equal Employment Opportunity, ("quotas"), and equal pay for equal work, all the way to the ol' school grade elimination to avoid "offending" the low-achievers, ALL result in dumbing down, lowering the bar, or in the case of pay, reducing the pay to achievers to the level of non-achievers?

When there is disparity to reward accomplishment, suddenly it's an excuse by the lower-paid employee to complain about "discrimination".

All of these Liberal brainstorms (which favor ONLY the lawyers who make the big bucks on these cases) wind up being yet another vicitmhood assault on the achievments of others (quite similar, I think, to the idea of progressive tax rates that penalize the successful, to hand out to the lack-luster). Employers who don't pay according to ability always find in the end that the quality talent will leave and go elsewhere, where their skills are compensated properly.

When the Liberals get through with trying to drag everyone down to the least common denominator, we will have the peasant class they seek in their socialist utopia.

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