Lexology
Strasburger & Price LLP
Tiffany L. Cox USA March 17 2010
Slightly one year after the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (“Ledbetter Act”), the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has declined to apply the Ledbetter Act to extend the limitations period for a time-barred age discrimination claim arising out of several instances of partnership denial. Schuler v. PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, --- F.3d ----, 2010 WL 522345 (D.C. Cir.2010). The Schuler decision rejects the broader view of the Ledbetter Act advanced by some members of the plaintiffs’ bar that the Act extended beyond pay discrimination claims to other forms of discrimination.
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
The Ledbetter Act reversed the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, 550 U.S. 618 (2007), in which the Court held the plaintiff’s pay discrimination claims, spanning the duration of her almost 20-year employment at Goodyear, were untimely, explaining that the time for filing a charge of discrimination runs from when an employer makes a discriminatory decision about an employee's compensation and not each time the employee receives a paycheck affected by that discrimination. In effect, employees could not challenge on-going pay discrimination if the employer’s original discriminatory pay decision occurred outside of the 180- day limitations period, even when the employee continued to receive paychecks that had been discriminatorily reduced.
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009
Intended to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision, the Ledbetter Act amended four federal laws to declare that an unlawful employment practice related to discriminatory compensation occurs not only upon adoption of a “discriminatory compensation decision or other practice,” but also when the individual becomes subject to the decision or other practice, as well as each additional application of the decision or practice. The Ledbetter Act, therefore, restarts the 180-day statute of limitations upon each occurrence of a discriminatory pay practice, including every issuance of a discriminatory pay check.
Schuler v. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, LLP
In Schuler v. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, LLP, the plaintiffs alleged that PriceWaterhouseCoopers denied them promotion to partnership on several occasions in 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2004 because of their age in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”). The district court dismissed most of plaintiff Harold Schuler’s claims as untimely under the ADEA because he had failed to file a timely charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. On appeal, Schuler argued the Ledbetter Act made his claims timely. Relying upon the Ledbetter Act’s language of “discriminatory compensation decision or other practice,” Schuler argued the decision not to make him a partner was an “‘other act’ ... intertwined with a discriminatory compensation decision” because as a result of that decision, he received significantly less remuneration than he would have as a partner.
The Court of Appeals disagreed with Schuler’s argument, holding the phrase “discrimination in compensation” means paying different wages or providing different benefits to similarly situated employees—not promoting one employee but not another to a more remunerative position. The Court reasoned that the Ledbetter Act was enacted to address a specific type of discrimination (pay discrimination) and not other unspecified types of discrimination in employment. Schuler’s claim was not a pay discrimination claim but rather, a discriminatory failure to promote claim, which, while actionable, was not a claim for which the limitations period could be extended under the Ledbetter Act.
Full Story: http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=cb390027-a8da-44b6-9fa6-47c8cc674fe7&utm_source=Lexology%20Daily%20Newsfeed&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Lexology%20subscriber%20daily%20feed&utm_content=Lexology%20Daily%20Newsfeed%202010-03-29&utm_term=
No comments:
Post a Comment