Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009



Summary
Lilly Ledbetter, an area manager at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Gadsen, Ala., from 1979 to 1998, sued the company for pay discrimination when she learned she had been earning less than her male co-workers. She won the suit, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. In 2007, the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision, the Court upheld the appeals court decision and ruled that Ledbetter had waited too long to file her complaint. As a result, Congress considered legislation that would extend the statute of limitations for pay discrimination complaints.

The legislation, dubbed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, was considered by the 110th Congress but did not advance in the Senate, and so it was introduced once again at the start of the 111th Congress in 2009. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (H.R. 11) was introduced on January 6, 2009 and passed by the House on January 9, 2009. The Senate passed a similar measure (S.181) on January 22, 2009, and the House passed the Senate version on January 27, 2009. President Barack Obama signed it January 29. 2009.

Background
Lilly Ledbetter worked as an area manager at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Gadsen, Ala., from 1979 to 1998. As she neared retirement, she received an anonymous note telling her that during her tenure she had been paid less than her male co-workers. At the time of her retirement she was the plant's only female area manager - and its lowest-paid one. She earned $3,727 per month, while the lowest-paid male area manager received $4,286 per month and the highest-paid male area manager earned $5,236. She sued Goodyear, and an Alabama jury found the company guilty of pay discrimination and awarded her $3 million in damages. The trial judge reduced the damages to $360,000, but an appeals overturned that ruling and erased all damages. In 2007, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which, by a 5-4 decision, upheld the appeals court ruling and declared that the statute of limitations had expired before Ledbetter took action. The Court held that Title VII the Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant that employees had 180 days after the initial act of alleged discrimination to make a formal complaint, regardless of when a discrepancy was discovered. In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, "Once again, the ball is in Congress's court," an invitation for legislation that would overturn the ruling. That summer, the House passed a bill dubbed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. In April 2008, the bill was introduced in the Senate but on April 23, 2008, a cloture vote to end debate and consider the bill failed, 56-42.

Details
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 seeks to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. by amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and by modifying the operation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. At issue is the 180-day statute of limitations for filling racial, gender, or national origin employment discrimination suits. The Supreme Court held that the time period began with the initial act of alleged discrimination, regardless of when that act may have been discovered. This bill resets the 180-day time period after each instance of alleged discrimination, so that every time a worker receives a paycheck, he or she has 180 days to file a formal complaint.

First House vote
In the first week of the 111th Congress, the House took up the bill on January 6, 2009, and passed it by a vote of 247-171 on January 9, 2009. Supporters, such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and sponsor Rep. George Miller, said the bill would ensure that the Ledbetter decision would not stand. Opponents, including groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers, said the bill would cause needless lawsuits and would hurt employers. President George W. Bush threatened to veto the bill, just as he had said in April 2008. The House version also contained the language of another proposal, the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 12), which sought to address gender-based pay discrimination by creating stricter enforcement provisions than those of the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The bill would force employers charged with discriminating based on sex to prove that a pay disparity was based on “a bona fide factor” other than sex, and that the factor was “consistent with business necessity.”



Senate vote
The Senate took up a similar bill on January 8, 2009. The Senate version, however, did not include the language of the Paycheck Fairness Act, and focused on changing the statute of limitations for pay discrimination cases. The Senate considered 13 amendments, but none were adopted. The bill passed without amendment by a 61-36 vote.



Second House vote
The House approved the Senate version of the bill by a 250-177 vote on January 27, 2009. The bill was passed under a House rule that prevented amendments, a tactic that some Republicans criticized. President Obama signed the bill into the law on January 29, 2009; it was the first bill he signed as president.



External resources

 * THOMAS
 * Congressional Votes, "NYTimes.com"

External articles

 * "Times Topics: Lilly M. Ledbetter" "NYTimes.com"
 * Linda Greenhouse, "Court Explores Complexities in Job Discrimination Case," "The New York Times," November 28, 2006.
 * Robert Pear, "Justices’ Ruling in Discrimination Case May Draw Quick Action by Obama," "The New York Times," January 4, 2009.
 * "'(Ledbetter's) story inspires everyone,'" "The Birmingham News," February 8, 2009.
 * Wikipedia article on Ledbetter v. Goodyear