U.S. Department of Labor, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Over the weekend, Lilly Ledbetter, a woman who unintentionally became a champion of equal pay for men and women, died at 86.
Ms. Ledbetter worked for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (Goodyear) from 1979 until 1998. During much of this time, the company either gave or denied raises to salaried employees where Ms. Ledbetter worked based on supervisor evaluations. In March 1998, Ledbetter submitted a questionnaire to the EEOC alleging specific acts of sex discrimination, and in July of that year, she filed a formal EEOC charge. After taking early retirement in November 1998, Ledbetter filed suit in federal court for Title VII gender discrimination and violation of the Equal Pay Act. A jury found for Ledbetter and awarded her over $3.5 million for her Title VII claim, which the district judge later reduced to $360,000.
After a series of appeals brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, the question before it was whether a plaintiff claiming disparate treatment based on pay can maintain a Title VII action when the disparate pay is received during the limited window when a plaintiff may file with the EEOC but results from discriminatory pay decisions outside that limitations period.
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court concluded that Ledbetter’s claim was time-barred by Title VII’s limitations period. In other words, each new unlawful pay decision did not restart the statute of limitations.
In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted, “Once again, the ball is in Congress’ court” to change the law.
They listened.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 was signed into law on January 29, 2009. It provides that each discriminatory paycheck restarts the clock on the statute of limitations for a disparate pay claim, regardless of when the discrimination began. The Act had a retroactive effective date of May 28, 2007, and applies to all discriminatory compensation claims pending on or after that date.
President Barack Obama, who signed the measure, issued a statement in which he noted that “Lilly Ledbetter never set out to be a trailblazer or a household name. She just wanted to be paid the same as a man for her hard work. But this grandmother from Alabama kept on fighting until the day I signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law — my first as president.”
A CBS News story on Ms. Ledbetter’s passing notes that she continued her advocacy well after the law was signed.
Ledbetter received the Future Is Female Lifetime Achievement Award from Advertising Week last week.
And a movie about her life, “Lilly,” starring Patricia Clarkson, just premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival.