Stimulus Bill Signed into Law

Jan 29, 2009

No, not the one for America's businesses and workers, the one for trial lawyers. We have written about the problems with the Ledbetter case and the Ledbetter bill many times (first one, last one), so we will let Karen Lee Torre, a plaintiff-side employment litigator explain:

The bill is a political scam...to so elasticize the statute of limitations for discrimination claims that employers will likely face a flood of expensive and frivolous lawsuits...I have represented many sex discrimination victims. I have won their cases. After 20 years of such efforts, I know a victim when I see one. Let me tell you something: Lilly Ledbetter is no victim. When Ledbetter issued, I reserved judgment as I wished to actually read the opinion first...Not only did I see a perfectly correct holding on the law, but damning facts.
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Much was made of a jury verdict in Ledbetter’s favor but no attention was given to her grossly unfair advantage at trial. The supervisor at the center of her now moss-covered claim was long dead. How convenient for Ledbetter – she hawked her case to a jury without the man she accused of sexism there to tell his side...Here’s another fact ignored in the political rhetoric. Ledbetter, for unexplained reasons, abandoned an Equal Pay Act claim asserted in her suit. The Equal Pay Act does not contain Title VII’s filing limitations, nor does it require plaintiffs to prove intent. It was a much better claim, easier to prove, and it was timely. After abandoning it on appeal, Ledbetter essentially tried to squeeze the EPA claim into Title VII’s framework and she justly failed in the effort.

Hopefully Bill Samuel, director of government affairs at the AFL-CIO is correct when he said "Pay discrimination exists, although it's not rampant. There will not be a rash of lawsuits." But since when has reality trumped the allure of a big settlement?

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