On January 29, 2009, President Obama signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the time frame in which employees can sue for discriminatory compensation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), and the Americans with Disability Act (ADA).  Under the new law, employees can file a complaint for pay discrimination within 180 days of any discriminatory compensation decision, rather than within 180 days of the first occurrence of pay discrimination.  In other words, the new law permits employees to sue for pay discrimination within 180 days of their most recent paycheck. 

The Act is in response to the 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., where the Court in a 5-4 decision, concluded that Ledbetter could no longer make a claim of gender-based pay discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission because she failed to do so within 180 days of the initial discriminatory compensation decision.  The problem with requiring a strict timetable for reporting pay discrimination is that it often takes employees years to detect wage disparities.   Ms. Ledbetter for example, did not learn that she was being paid less than similarly-situated males until she was approaching retirement, several years after the pay discrimination allegedly began.  The new law however, restores the employees’ ability to challenge unequal pay by relaxing the statute of limitations for initiating a claim of unequal pay.  The Act applies to all discrimination claims under Title VII, the ADEA, and the ADA, and is effective for any claims made on or after May 28, 2007. 

The Employment Law Group® law firm routinely represents employees subjected to discriminatory practices because of their gender, race, national origin, age or disability.  Recently, the firm won a $466,000 plus verdict for a former female director who alleged that her employer discriminated against her by paying her less than similarly-situated male directors.  For more information on the firm’s Discrimination Practice, click here.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Age Discrimination, Disability Discrimination Legislation, Federal Discrimination Legislation, Sex Discrimination, Title VII Discrimination. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.