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Supreme Court decision had far-reaching impact

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 9, 2009

In May, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case of Ledbetter vs. The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company holding that the time period for filing a discrimination claim based upon a difference in pay began to run when the pay decision was made. In the case, attorneys for Ms. Ledbetter had argued that she was discriminated against each time she was issued a paycheck at a rate less than her male counterparts. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the argument, finding that the plaintiff's reasoning undercut the requirement to timely file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The Ledbetter decision prompted the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which ultimately stalled in the U.S. Senate. The act would have treated wage disparity as a continuing act of discrimination. Depending upon ones point of view, the act would have either negated the requirement that discrimination claims be timely filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission thus creating a virtually perpetual statute of limitations or would have permitted employees to address discriminatory pay decisions that continue to manifest themselves every time the employee receives a pay check.

Ledbetter also impacted a number of lower level court decisions where employees had sought to argue that employment practices constituted a continuing violation of fair employment laws. In one case, an African-American professor at Florida International University brought a Title VII discrimination lawsuit because his employment contract was not renewed and he was reassigned to another campus during his the final two semesters of his employment contract.

The professor failed to file a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within 300 days of learning of his reassignment, but argued that each day he was not permitted to attend his original company constituted a continuing act of discrimination. Citing Ledbetter, the judge entered judgment in favor of the university. Having failed to file the charge within 300 days of learning of his reassignment, the professor had forever waived his ability to bring the discrimination claim.

In another case, a federal judge entered judgment against an African-American employee who sued Florida Hospital Orlando alleging that he had been discriminated against because the employee failed to timely file a discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As in Ledbetter, the employee had sought to argue that past discriminatory practices manifested themselves each day in the employee's working conditions and rate of pay. Ledbetter was also cited by a federal judge that entered judgment against an African-American female code enforcement officer's discrimination suit against the city of Tampa in August 2008.

In light of the Ledbetter holding, the only argument that an employee who has failed to timely file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is that the time period itself should be tolled. Equitable tolling is an extraordinary remedy which the federal courts will employ sparingly. Equitable tolling occurs when the employee has no reasonable way of discovering that a wrong has been participated against her. The most common grounds for equitable tolling occurs when the employee is told that he or she is being terminated for a legitimate business reason only to find out after the statutory time has expired that the purported reason for the termination is merely a pretext for discrimination.

Examples include an African-American police officer who was discharged for misconduct who later learned that a Caucasian officer guilty of the same misconduct was not discharged and in the case of a women employee who was told she was being terminated due to a lack of funds who later found out that her position was filled by a less qualified man.

Despite the potential for equitable tolling, however, the lesson of the Ledbetter decision is that an employee's delay may result in the employee losing the ability to bring a discrimination suit.

Randall Love is an attorney with Randall J. Love & Associates, New Port Richey, and practices in the areas of employment law, commercial and real estate litigation, personal injury and probate litigation. He is a certified Circuit Court mediator.

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