Posted by Sarah Ruhlen on behalf of William Hand
It is no secret that women are generally paid less than men. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as the Gender Pay Gap. Nationally, employers are paying women working full-time, year-round jobs, on average, eighty-three cents for every dollar paid to men. When part-time and part-year workers are included in the comparison, women were typically paid only seventy-eight cents for every dollar paid to men in 2023.[1]
Lilly Ledbetter was a modern pioneer fighting against this Gender Pay Gap. She recently passed away at 86 on October 12, 2024. Given her recent passing, let us take some time to remember Lilly and appreciate her significant contribution to fighting gender inequality and workplace discrimination.
Lilly Ledbetter, a Jacksonville Alabama native, was a supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Alabama starting in 1979. She was one of the few female supervisors at the Gadsden tire plant and worked there for almost 20 years. Lilly faced substantial sexual harassment in her time with Goodyear, including her boss telling her that he did not think women should be working there.
One day while working at the Goodyear plant Lilly received an anonymous note informing her that Goodyear was paying her less than her male coworkers in the same position. In an interview with National Public Radio in 2009 Lilly recalled “When I saw that, it took my breath away. I felt humiliated. I felt degraded. I had to get my composure back to go ahead and perform my job and then my first day off, I went to Birmingham and filed a charge with the EEOC.”
Filing a claim with the EEOC was Lilly’s first step in her ten-year fight for women’s equality in the workplace.
LEDBETTER V. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO.:
After she filed a complaint with the EEOC, Lilly sued Goodyear for gender discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging that the company had given her a low salary because of her gender. A jury found that Goodyear had discriminated against Lilly Ledbetter and awarded her $3.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages for the extreme nature of the pay discrimination that Goodyear subjected her to.
Later A federal district judge reduced her damages to $360,000.
Goodyear appealed, citing a Title VII provision that requires grievants file their Title VII discrimination claims within 180 days of the employer’s discriminatory conduct. The jury had examined Lilly’s entire career for evidence of discrimination, but Goodyear argued that the jury should only have considered the one annual salary review that occurred within the 180-day limitations period before her complaint. Ergo, Lilly’s claims were time-barred because any decision to pay Lilly less than her male counterparts happened more than 180 days before she filed her claim.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed the lower court, but without adopting Goodyear’s position entirely. Instead, the Circuit Court ruled that the jury could only examine Lilly’s career for evidence of discrimination as far back as the last annual salary review before the start of the 180-day limitations period. The Circuit Court ruled that Lilly getting a low salary during the 180 days did not justify the evaluation of Ledbetter’s entire career. Instead, only those reviews that affected Lilly’s pay during the 180 days could be evaluated. The Circuit Court found no evidence of discrimination in those reviews, so it reversed the District Court and dismissed Lilly’s complaint.
The Supreme Court then heard Goodyear’s appeal and decided against Lilly with Justice Samuel Alito writing for the 5-4 majority. Justice Alito wrote that the Court found Title VII’s limitations period barred Lilly’s claim because the “current effects alone cannot breathe life into prior, uncharged discrimination.” Justice Alito further opined adopting Lilly’s argument would mean “if a single discriminatory pay decision made 20 years ago continued to affect an employee’s pay today, the dissent would presumably hold that the employee could file a timely EEOC charge today.”
In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the majority’s decision “a cramped interpretation of Title VII, incompatible with the statute’s broad remedial purpose.” Justice Ginsburg included in her dissent that, “the Legislature may act to correct this Court’s parsimonious reading of Title VII.”
THE LILLY LEDBETTER FAIR PAY ACT:
In response to the Supreme Court’s decision, Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on January 29, 2009. The introductory finding section of the Act states:
Congress found The Supreme Court in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 (2007), significantly impairs statutory protections against discrimination in compensation that Congress established and that have been bedrock principles of American law for decades. The Ledbetter decision undermines those statutory protections by unduly restricting the period in which victims of discrimination can challenge and recover for discriminatory compensation decisions or other practices, contrary to the intent of Congress.
The Act goes on to reinstate prior law, making it clear that pay discrimination claims based on sex, race, national origin, age, religion, and disability “accrue” each time an employee receives a discriminatory paycheck; when a discriminatory pay decision or practice is adopted; when a person becomes subject to the decision or practice; or when a person is otherwise affected by the decision or practice. The law is retroactive to May 28, 2007, the day before the Court issued its ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
IMPACT:
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 means that every paycheck from an employer that violates the Equal Pay Act refreshes the period for filing the claim. Further, it now allows the successful grievant to obtain relief including recovery of back pay for up to two years before they filed the claim of unlawful pay discrimination. However, while the Act is a great step forward in advancing pay equality, recovery is still limited to backpay for a maximum of two years before filing a claim. Therefore, anyone who feels they are being illegally discriminated against in their pay or compensation should consult an attorney sooner rather than later, or risk losing out on back pay they might otherwise be entitled to.
CONCLUSION:
Lilly Ledbetter did not set out to be a modern activist fighting the Gender Pay Gap. She was a woman who gave nearly twenty years of her career to an employer who paid her less than her male counterparts. However, what truly set Lilly apart was that she simply did not accept this discrimination. She fought it in Federal Courts for nearly ten years, all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, to hold her employer accountable. While her case was ultimately unsuccessful, it was because she fought so hard for equal pay that Congress passed The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 bringing us a little closer to fair pay and workplace equality.
Thank you, Lilly Ledbetter!
[1] The Wage Gap, State by State – National Women’s Law Center; 2024 Gender Pay Gap Report (GPGR) | Payscale Research
– William P. Hand
