What exactly does the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act do?
First, of course, it enshrines Ledbetter’s lawyers’ argument on the statute of limitations. The statute in question involves both the filing of EEOC complaints and the filing of lawsuits, and it runs either 180 or 300 days. The statute is 300 days in most states, but just 180 days in states that do not have fair employment agencies. The Supreme Court held that the clock starts ticking when the discriminatory pay decision is made, generally when the person is hired. Her lawyers argued that it began each time a person received a paycheck that reflected discrimination, and indeed, this view had been the common interpretation by many courts throughout the land prior to the decisions by the 11th Circuit Court and the Supreme Court. The Ledbetter Law, however, doesn’t stop at merely adopting the paycheck interpretation; it also includes language that, some have argued, virtually eliminates the statute of limitation and makes pay discrimination cases, like murder, limitation-less. Opening lan
