Round-Up: Today’s Action
David G. Savage of the LA Times reports here on the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear, “a victory for employers”; Bloomberg’s Greg Stohr reports here; James Vicini of Reuters has this article on the ruling, which puts a six-month limit on pay discrimination lawsuits; at MarketWatch, Mark H. Anderson reports here.
The AP’s Mark Sherman has this story on the decision, which broke along ideological lines; here at NPR, Dahlia Lithwick discusses the ruling with Alex Cohen on “Day to Day”; CNN Supreme Court Producer Bill Mears reports here on the ruling and Justice Ginsburg’s “sharply worded” dissent; in the New York Times, David Stout has this article discussing the Court’s opinion and noting that Justice Ginsburg “read part of her dissent aloud (itself an unmistakable sign of anger)”; the Washington Post’s Robert Barnes has this article discussing the Court’s ruling; Joan Biskupic reports here in the USA Today.
Scott Lemieux weighs in here at Tapped, the group blog of The American Prospect; Frank Steinberg has this post at the New Jersey Employment Law Blog; and the ACSBlog has this post. Ross Runkel discusses today’s opinion here at Law Memo.
The Associated Press reports here on today’s grants in three business-related disputes; Doug Berman has this post discussing today’s action and a notable cert. denial in the Washington v. VanDelft sentencing case.
In David Stout’s NYT article, I was struck by his characterization of the SCOTUS deliberations (meaning, I guess, the conference??) as “heated”. I felt his article provided no backup to this claim, and for me, it prompted questions on his motives and journalistic objectivity.
Comment by David.Huberman — May 29, 2007 @ 5:51 pm
There’s a reason why Stout only writes for the NYT web edition…
Of course, it also would have been nice had Linda Greenhouse provided some support for her assertion that had Justice O’Connor still been on the Court, she “would almost certainly have voted the other way” in Ledbetter. Maybe so, but there’s nothing in the article to back this claim up.
Comment by Taylor Reynolds — May 29, 2007 @ 11:25 pm
Mr. Reynolds,
You beat me by six minutes. I was just about to write that Stout’s assertion is very puzzling when one recalls that Justice O’connor wrote the dissent in the part of Morgan relevant to this case. Justice Thomas evidently refused to estend Morgan to Ledbetter, and it would be quite surprising if the author of the dissent in Morgan would vote to extend its reasoning more than the author of the majority opinion.
Comment by Jacob Berlove — May 29, 2007 @ 11:38 pm
I’m a little puzzled by the claim by Ledbetter’s able counsel, quoted in Greg Stohr’s Bloomberg News story, that the Ledbetter decision will have a big effect on race cases.
Ledbetter’s counsel said that “The opinion matters much more for folks bringing race discrimination claims” than sex discrimination claims, since “They have no alternative” to the Civil Rights Act, like the Equal Pay Act.
But that’s not usually true. Racial discrimination plaintiffs can sue not only under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which has a 180-day statute of limitations, but also under 42 U.S.C. 1981, which has a four year statute of limitations.
And Ledbetter only involves Title VII.
So pay discrimination cases can continue to be brought under the Equal Pay Act (for sex discrimination) and 42 U.S.C. 1981 (for race discrimination) even if they are time-barred under Title VII).
(It’s true that Section 1981 only covers intentional racial discrimination, not “disparate impact,” but most pay discrimination cases allege intentional discrimination, and the Supreme Court has really relaxed the application of the statute of limitations in Title VII class actions, which are the vehicle for many disparate impact cases. Moreover, the Ledbetter decision involved an intentional discrimination claim).
I’m also baffled by Linda Greenhouse’s erroneous claim in the New York Times that Justice O’Connor’s replacement with Justice Alito changed the outcome of the case.
As a commenter above notes, Justice O’Connor rigorously enforced the statute of limitations, and was “conservative” on that issue. It’s Justice Thomas who’s the swing justice on how to enforce Title VII’s statute of limitations; he’s more liberal on the subject than Justice O’Connor, which is a perspective he perhaps acquired while he was head of the EEOC, which has sought to limit the application of Title VII’s statute of limitations.
I think Ledbetter was correctly decided, based on the statute’s plain text, among other reasons.
Comment by Hans Bader — May 31, 2007 @ 3:34 pm