Some good news for employers: The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday ruled 5-4 that employees who complain of pay discrimination must file a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) within 180 days of the discriminatory pay decision, rather than within 180 days of the employee’s last paycheck. According to the high court, the “EEOC filing deadline “protect[s] employers from the burden of defending claims arising from employment decisions that are long past.” As a result of this ruling, employees won’t be able to wait years and then hit employers with stale pay bias suits.
The case involved Lilly Ledbetter, a manager for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in Alabama. She sued Goodyear under Title VII, the federal antibias law, contending that she was paid about 15 percent less than her male counterparts. Goodyear successfully argued that her case should be dismissed because while Title VII requires an employee to file an EEOC charge within 180 days of the allegedly discriminatory act, Ledbetter’s disparate pay level was based on decisions made 20 years earlier when she was hired.
We’ll have full details on this important decision in an upcoming issue of the California Employer Advisor.
Join us this fall in San Francisco for the California Employment Law Update conference, a 3-day event that will teach you everything you need to know about new laws and regulations, and your compliance obligations, for the year ahead—it’s one-stop shopping at its best.
Additional Resource:
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., U.S. Supreme Court No. 05-1074, 2007