Lilly Ledbetter Case Summary

The first round of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company v. White in the federal court reject the discrimination claims but did reward her in damages from the retaliation that violated Title VII in the amount of $43,000. Burlington appealed on the claim she did not suffer this retaliation and had no grounds to bring a suit . Their defense was that she had not be let go from the company, the position that they gave her after being pulled from the forklift was the same classification so she was not demoted, nor was she denied a promotion or wages. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals did not buy this defense and concurred that because she was suspended without pay, regardless of the fact that she was reinstated with full back pay, was

deemed an “adverse employment action”. The appellant court also found that moving her to a less desirable position after she filed the complaint was also an adverse employment action. Burlington again appealed the ruling going to the Supreme Court with the case.
The question the Court was if she did indeed suffer retaliatory discrimination, was the employer liable? The Court ruled unanimously in favor of White. Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court where all agreed that she did suffer retaliatory discrimination when she was reassigned and suspended without pay despite the duties being within the same pay classification. Here a new test was created in Justice Breyer’s opinion joined by all but Justice Alito, in which made it a “rule” that in order for one to succeed in winning a claim of retaliatory discrimination, the plaintiff had to prove that a reasonable employee would have found the challenged action materially adverse” . In quoting Washington, 420 F. 3d, at 662 , Breyer further noted that a “reasonable worker [had to be dissuaded] from making or supporting a charge of discrimination” in fear that they would be retaliated against . It is important to note here that they used the term “material adversity” in order to separate out substantial versus trivial harms where they looked to the Oncale and Faragher cases where judicial principles for sexual harassments had to filter out complaints filed for using intermittent abusive language, inappropriate jokes relating to gender, and occasional teasing. On the grander scale, the implications of the decision reached in this case were received to be very important, with many arguing that it represented an expansion of Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision and , in general, and expansion of civil rights.
F. The Lilly Ledbetter Case
The most recent major case involving sex-based discrimination that has drawn much attention, including President Obama is Ledbetter v.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Inc. The general facts of the case are that Lilly Ledbetter was an employee of Goodyear Tire for nearly two decades. When it came to annual performance and salary reviews, she was regularly given low performance marks which led to low raises in comparison to other workers. Ledbetter felt that these reviews and low wages were a result of her being a woman; therefore she filed a suit against the company under Title VII. When brought to jury, the verdict was in favor of Ledbetter and she was awarded 3.5 million dollars, which was later reduced to $360,000. Like the Burlington v. White case, the company appealed the case on the grounds that there was a statute of limitations regarding when complaints had to be filed. Here, Goodyear argued that there was a provision in Title VII that required a complaint to be filed within 180 days of the discriminatory

action.
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court decision, but did not fully support Goodyear’s position. Goodyear felt that because Title VII says one has to file within 180 days, that the jury should have only considered one year’s salary review prior to her complaint. The appellant court agreed with this argument and additionally found there to be no evidence of discrimination with regards to her salary and performance review.
When the decision was handed down in the Supreme Court, the Court did not find itself to have an overwhelming majority like a substantial number of cases prior, being split five votes to four favoring Goodyear.

The question at stake was if a plaintiff could bring forth a suit of salary discrimination under Title VII when the unequal salary a person received during the 180-day limit prescribed in the provisions is ultimately the result of a long period of discrimination that reached far beyond the statutory limitations . Justice Alito delivered the majority opinion that was joined by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Chief Justice Roberts that her failure to file with the EEOC when she first felt like her salary was based on discriminatory actions did not allow her special considerations for because she felt that her pay discrimination was not the same as other types of employment discriminations; however, they believed her claim to be untimely as a decision regarding pay has to do with a particular point in time, which in this case would only be permissible in the 180 days and the pay period after she filed the

suit.
Many have argued that the ruling in this case should have gone the other way in favor of Ledbetter for the fact that this 180 time limit should not start, in this case, from the first paycheck, but from the time that the plaintiff realizes they are being discriminated against. Even in Justice Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion, she cited the Bazemore case where past unequal paychecks was a cause actionable outside of a particular filing period because each paycheck that was not equal to average paychecks for those holding the same position were discriminating each time a paycheck was cut.