Real Stories: Ledbetter v. Goodyear
Lilly Ledbetter
Ledbetter v. Goodyear
Alabama
Lilly Ledbetter worked at Goodyear Tire & Rubber in Gadsen, Alabama for more than 19 years. For much of that period, she was the victim of pay discrimination.
Despite Ms. Ledbetter's excellent work evaluations and even a "Top Performance Award" in 1996, Ledbetter suspected that she was being paid less than her male colleagues. Ledbetter’s suspicions were confirmed when someone anonymously passed her a document outlining how she was earning 20 percent less than the lowest-paid male supervisor at Goodyear. Making matters worse, the pay disparity affected not only her past earnings, but also reduced the size of her pension.
Ledbetter sued Goodyear under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, claiming that the tire company discriminated against her through years of unfair paychecks because she was a woman. The Alabama jury agreed, awarding Ledbetter $3.6 million in damages.
The Supreme Court, however, took all of that away. Courts, including the Supreme Court, had long understood that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act gives employees 180 days after receiving their last discriminatory paycheck to file a pay discrimination claim. Yet, in Ledbetter's case, the Supreme Court reversed years of precedent and ruled that an employee must file their pay discrimination claim within 180 days of her employer last discriminatory pay decision.
Because employees generally do not know what their colleagues earn, and thus cannot easily determine whether they are being discriminatorily paid less, this new rule makes it almost impossible for any plaintiff to recover for pay discrimination. All an employer has to due is keep pay information secret for 180 days and he is forever insulated from liability-– no matter now long the discrimination continues.
Because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear, workers like Lilly Ledbetter face an unreasonably high standard for accessing courts and seeking a remedy when their employers discriminate based on pay.
