High court backs limit on equal-pay suits
High court backs limit on equal-pay suits
By Patti Waldmeir in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: May 29 2007 22:08 | Last updated: May 29 2007 22:08
The Supreme Court on Tuesday handed employers a victory by limiting some kinds of employment lawsuits involving pay discrimination.
The court ruled 5-4 that workers who want to sue over pay discrimination have to do so very quickly – and that they cannot wait until a big wage gap opens up because of a series of incremental, discriminatory wage decisions over a period of years.
The case involved the rules for applying a 180-day deadline for bringing pay discrimination claims under Title VII, the federal job bias law. The majority ruled that the deadline should be imposed strictly, because employers would otherwise find it too hard to defend against claims “arising from employment decisions that are long past”.
But in an angry dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court’s only woman and a strong supporter of women’s rights, said the ruling shows that “the Court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women may be victims of pay discrimination”. Many workers do not know how much their colleagues are paid, so they may not realise until years later that they have been discriminated against, she said.
“If you sue only when the pay disparity becomes steady and large enough to enable you to mount a winnable case, you will be cut off at the court’s threshold for suing too late,” she said in an unusual statement from the bench.
The case involved a woman who sued Goodyear Tire & Rubber, claiming that she earned less than the lowest-paid man doing the same work after 19 years at an Alabama plant.
A federal jury in Alabama awarded her more than $200,000 in back pay, plus $3.3m in punitive damages. But a federal appeals court threw out the award, saying jurors should have looked only at the most recent pay decisions.
Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote for the majority, said the short deadline for such claims “reflects Congress’s strong preference for the prompt resolution of employment discrimination allegations through voluntary conciliation and co-operation”.
A spokeswoman for the US Chamber of Commerce said the business community was “very pleased with the ruling”. “We think the court struck the right balance,” said Robin Conrad of the National Chamber Litigation Center.
“There was concern in the business community about being able to defend claims that went so far back in time that evidence couldn’t be preserved,” she said.
By Patti Waldmeir in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: May 29 2007 22:08 | Last updated: May 29 2007 22:08
The Supreme Court on Tuesday handed employers a victory by limiting some kinds of employment lawsuits involving pay discrimination.
The court ruled 5-4 that workers who want to sue over pay discrimination have to do so very quickly – and that they cannot wait until a big wage gap opens up because of a series of incremental, discriminatory wage decisions over a period of years.
The case involved the rules for applying a 180-day deadline for bringing pay discrimination claims under Title VII, the federal job bias law. The majority ruled that the deadline should be imposed strictly, because employers would otherwise find it too hard to defend against claims “arising from employment decisions that are long past”.
But in an angry dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court’s only woman and a strong supporter of women’s rights, said the ruling shows that “the Court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women may be victims of pay discrimination”. Many workers do not know how much their colleagues are paid, so they may not realise until years later that they have been discriminated against, she said.
“If you sue only when the pay disparity becomes steady and large enough to enable you to mount a winnable case, you will be cut off at the court’s threshold for suing too late,” she said in an unusual statement from the bench.
The case involved a woman who sued Goodyear Tire & Rubber, claiming that she earned less than the lowest-paid man doing the same work after 19 years at an Alabama plant.
A federal jury in Alabama awarded her more than $200,000 in back pay, plus $3.3m in punitive damages. But a federal appeals court threw out the award, saying jurors should have looked only at the most recent pay decisions.
Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote for the majority, said the short deadline for such claims “reflects Congress’s strong preference for the prompt resolution of employment discrimination allegations through voluntary conciliation and co-operation”.
A spokeswoman for the US Chamber of Commerce said the business community was “very pleased with the ruling”. “We think the court struck the right balance,” said Robin Conrad of the National Chamber Litigation Center.
“There was concern in the business community about being able to defend claims that went so far back in time that evidence couldn’t be preserved,” she said.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 9:45 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home