Order Code RS22686
June 28, 2007
Pay Discrimination Claims Under Title VII
of the Civil Rights Act: A Legal Analysis
of the Supreme Court’s Decision in
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc.
Jody Feder
Legislative Attorney
American Law Division
Summary
This report discusses Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc., a recent case
in which the Supreme Court considered the timeliness of a sex discrimination claim
filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination
on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. In Ledbetter, the female
plaintiff alleged that past sex discrimination had resulted in lower pay increases and that
these past pay decisions continued to affect the amount of her pay throughout her
employment, resulting in a significant pay disparity between her and her male colleagues
by the end of her nearly twenty year career. Under Title VII, a plaintiff is required to file
suit within 180 days after an alleged unlawful employment practice has occurred.
Although the plaintiff in Ledbetter argued that each paycheck she received constituted
a new violation of the statute and therefore reset the clock with regard to filing a claim,
the Court rejected this argument, reasoning that even if employees suffer continuing
effects from past discrimination, their claims are time barred unless filed within the
specified number of days of the original discriminatory act. Currently, several bills that
would supercede the Ledbetter decision by amending Title VII have been introduced in
the 110th Congress, including H.R. 2660 and H.R. 2831, and a companion bill to H.R.
2831 has been announced for introduction in the Senate.
In June 2007, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire
& Rubber Co., Inc.,1 a case that involved questions about the timeliness of claims filed
under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in employment on
the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.2 In a 5-4 vote decision, the Court
rejected the plaintiff’s argument that each paycheck she received reflected a lower salary
1 127 S. Ct. 2162 (U.S. 2007).
2 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a).

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due to past discrimination and therefore constituted a new violation of the statute. Instead,
the Court held that “a new violation does not occur, and a new charging period does not
commence, upon the occurrence of subsequent nondiscriminatory acts that entail adverse
effects resulting from the past discrimination.”3 As a result, the Court held that the
plaintiff had not filed suit in a timely manner. Although the decision may limit some pay
discrimination claims based on Title VII, individuals may still sue for sex discrimination
that results in pay bias under the Equal Pay Act. However, the Court’s decision may make
it more difficult for employees to sue for pay discrimination under Title VII.
Background
From 1979 until 1998, Lilly Ledbetter worked as a supervisor for the Goodyear Tire
& Rubber Company. Although Ledbetter initially received a salary similar to the salaries
paid to her male colleagues, a pay disparity developed over time. By 1997, the pay
disparity between Ledbetter and her 15 male counterparts had widened considerably, to
the point that Ledbetter was paid $3,727 per month while the lowest paid male colleague
received $4,286 per month and the highest-paid male colleague received $5,236 per
month.
In 1998, Ledbetter filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging that Goodyear had unlawfully discriminated
against her on the basis of her sex in violation of Title VII. According to Ledbetter, her
current pay was discriminatorily low due to a long series of decisions reflecting
Goodyear’s pervasive discrimination against female managers in general and Ledbetter
in particular. A jury found in her favor, and the district court entered judgment for
backpay and damages,4 but the appellate court reversed.5 The Supreme Court granted
review in order to resolve disagreement among the appellate courts regarding the proper
application of the time limit for filing claims in Title VII disparate treatment pay cases.6
Title VII and Filing Deadlines for Discrimination Claims
Under Title VII, it is an “unlawful employment practice” for an employer to
discriminate “against any individual with respect to his compensation ... because of such
individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”7 Individuals who want to
challenge an employment practice as unlawful are required to file a charge with the EEOC
within a specified period — either 180 days or 300 days, depending on the state — “after
the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.”8
The question that arose in the Ledbetter case was how to determine precisely what
types of activities constitute an unlawful employment practice for purposes of starting the
3 Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 127 S. Ct. 2162, 2169 (U.S. 2007).
4 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27406 (D. Ala. 2003).
5 421 F.3d 1169 (11th Cir. 2005).
6 126 S. Ct. 2965 (U.S. 2006).
7 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a).
8 Id. at § 2000e-2(a)(1).

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clock on the filing deadline. Ledbetter argued that two different employment practices
could qualify as having occurred within the 180-day charging period preceding the filing
of her EEOC claim: (1) the paychecks that were issued to her during that period, each of
which she alleged constituted a separate act of discrimination, or (2) a 1998 decision
denying her a raise, which she contended was unlawful because it perpetuated the
discriminatory pay decisions from previous years. In contrast, Goodyear argued that
Ledbetter’s claim was time barred because the discriminatory acts that affected her current
pay had taken place prior to the 180 days that preceded the claim Ledbetter filed with the
EEOC. The Supreme Court granted review to resolve the dispute.
The Supreme Court’s Decision
Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Goodyear, holding that Ledbetter’s
suit was time barred because no unlawfully discriminatory acts had taken place within the
180-day charging period. In rejecting Ledbetter’s claim, the Court majority relied heavily
on the principle that Title VII claims alleging disparate treatment require evidence of
discriminatory intent. Because there was no evidence that Goodyear had acted with
discriminatory intent when it issued the paychecks Ledbetter received during the charging
period or when the company had denied her a raise in 1998, the Court found that
Goodyear had not engaged in an unlawful employment practice during the specified time
period. As a result, the fact that Ledbetter may have been suffering from the continuing
effects of past discrimination was not sufficient for her to establish a claim within the
statutorily mandated filing period.9
In issuing its decision, the Ledbetter majority relied on a series of precedents in
analogous employment discrimination cases. For example, one such case, United Air
Lines, Inc. v. Evans,10 involved a female flight attendant who was not granted seniority
when she was rehired despite the fact that she had originally been forced to resign when
she got married. Although the Court agreed that the company’s discriminatory policy had
a continuing effect, that effect was not sufficient to establish a present violation.
Similarly, in Lorance v. AT&T Technologies, Inc.,11 the Court rejected a challenge to a
discriminatory seniority system because the complaint had been filed when the
discriminatory effect was felt, rather than within the charging period established by the
original discriminatory act, namely the adoption of the seniority system. In light of these
and other precedents, the Court concluded:
The EEOC charging period is triggered when a discrete unlawful practice takes place.
A new violation does not occur, and a new charging period does not commence, upon
the occurrence of subsequent nondiscriminatory acts that entail adverse effects
resulting from the past discrimination. But of course, if an employer engages in a
series of acts each of which is intentionally discriminatory, then a fresh violation takes
9 127 S. Ct. 2162, 2167 (U.S. 2007).
10 431 U.S. 553 (1977).
11 490 U.S. 900 (1989).

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place when each act is committed. ... [C]urrent effects alone cannot breathe life into
prior, uncharged discrimination....12
Of primary concern to the Court was the question of discriminatory intent. In
general, claims such as Ledbetter’s, which allege unlawful disparate treatment, must
demonstrate discriminatory intent. According to the Court, allowing Ledbetter to shift the
intent associated with the discriminatory pay decisions to later paychecks would have the
effect of imposing liability in the absence of the required intent.13 The Court also appeared
concerned that allowing Ledbetter’s claim to proceed would undermine Title VII
enforcement procedures and filing deadlines, which were designed in part to protect
employers from defending against discrimination claims that are long past. According to
the Court, Title VII’s short filing deadline “reflects Congress’ strong preference for the
prompt resolution of employment discrimination allegations through voluntary
conciliation and cooperation.”14
The Court also rejected Ledbetter’s reliance on Bazemore v. Friday,15 a pay
discrimination case involving employees who were, prior to enactment of Title VII,
separated into a white branch and a black branch, with the latter group receiving lower
salaries. Although the Bazemore Court held that an employer who adopts a discriminatory
pay structure violates Title VII whenever it issues a paycheck to disfavored employees,
the Ledbetter Court distinguished the two cases, arguing that the paychecks in Bazemore
reflected the employer’s ongoing retention of a discriminatory pay structure — a current
violation of the statute — while the paychecks in Ledbetter reflected the continuing effect
of an isolated, past violation of the statute.16 Finally, although the EEOC has interpreted
Title VII to allow challenges based on discriminatory pay each time a paycheck is
received,17 the Court declined to defer to the agency’s interpretation.18
In contrast, the dissent in Ledbetter strongly disagreed with the majority’s analysis.
According to the dissent, treating the actual payment of a discriminatory wage as an
unlawful employment practice would be more faithful to precedent, would better reflect
workplace realities, and would be more consistent with the overall purpose of Title VII.
Specifically, the dissent argued that the Court’s holding was inconsistent with the result
in Bazemore, contending that Bazemore recognized that paychecks that perpetuate past
discrimination constitute a fresh instance of discrimination every time they are issued.19
The dissent also drew an analogy between pay discrimination claims and sexual
harassment hostile work environment claims, which involve a series of discrete acts that
recur and are cumulative in impact. Since hostile work environment claims may be filed
even when some of the discrete acts that form the basis for a claim have taken place
12 Ledbetter, 127 S. Ct. at 2169.
13 Id. at 2170.
14 Id. at 2170-71.
15 478 U.S. 385 (1986).
16 Ledbetter, 127 S. Ct. at 2172-74.
17 EEOC Compliance Manual §2-IV-C(1)(a) [http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/threshold.html].
18 Ledbetter, 127 S. Ct. at 2177, n. 11.
19 Id. at 2180.

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outside of the charging period, the dissent would have allowed Ledbetter’s claim to
proceed as well.20
The dissent also distinguished pay bias claims from other types of employment
discrimination, arguing that pay discrimination is fundamentally different from other
types of employment bias. For example, employees, who are generally aware when they
suffer adverse employment actions related to promotion, transfer, hiring, or firing, may
not know they have suffered pay discrimination, particularly because salary levels are
often hidden from the employee’s view and pay disparities become apparent only over
time. As a result of these differences, the dissent argued that the precedents upon which
the Court relied were inapplicable because those cases involved easily identifiable acts
of discrimination.21 Finally, the dissent criticized the majority’s opinion as inconsistent
with the overall anti-discrimination purpose of Title VII.
Effect of the Decision
The Court’s decision in Ledbetter is likely to affect the workplace in several different
ways. First, employees may have a more difficult time bringing pay discrimination claims
under Title VII. If employees bring pay discrimination claims early in order to meet the
statutory filing deadline, they may have difficulty proving discrimination if the pay
disparity remains small. If employees bring pay discrimination claims later, however, then
they may not be able to meet the filing deadline. As a result of this dilemma, employers
may experience an increase in pay discrimination claims being filed against them, since
some employees may file claims in order to meet the deadline even in cases where
discrimination is unclear.
It is also important to note that the Ledbetter decision affects more than just pay bias
cases involving sex discrimination. Because Title VII applies to discrimination on the
basis of race, color, national origin, sex, and religion, many other classes of claimants are
affected by the decision. Furthermore, the Ledbetter case may also affect pay
discrimination under parallel employment discrimination statutes that are patterned on
Title VII, such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) or the Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA). Employees who file pay discrimination claims alleging race
or age discrimination, for example, may be more negatively affected by the decision than
employees who allege sex discrimination because the latter group still has recourse under
the Equal Pay Act (EPA). The EPA, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex
with regard to the compensation paid to men and women for substantially equal work
performed in the same establishment,22 does contain a statute of limitations for filing
claims but has, thus far, been interpreted in such a way that each issuance of an unequal
paycheck is treated as a new discriminatory act.23
In addition, the Ledbetter decision has implications for Congress. Since Ledbetter
was decided on statutory grounds, legislators who disagree with the Court’s interpretation
20 Id. at 2180-81.
21 Id. at 2181-83.
22 29 U.S.C. § 206.
23 See, e.g., Cardenas v. Massey, 269 F.3d 251 (3d Cir. 2001).

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may introduce legislation clarifying that unlawful employment practices under Title VII
include each issuance of a paycheck that reflects a discriminatory compensation practice.
For example, the Lorance decision, cited as precedent by the Ledbetter majority, was
subsequently superceded by Congress in the Civil Rights Act of 1991.24 Currently, several
bills that would amend Title VII in light of the Ledbetter decision have been introduced
in the 110th Congress, including H.R. 2660 and H.R. 2831. Senator Kennedy has indicated
that he will introduce a companion bill to H.R. 2831 in the Senate.25
24 102 P.L. 106.
25 Press Release, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Kennedy, Harkin, Clinton, Mikulski to Introduce
Legislation to Stop Pay Discrimination (May 30, 2007) [http://kennedy.senate.gov/
newsroom/press_release.cfm?id=7484A8AB-94A2-4D72-865C-616A89EDF4AD].

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