Employment law news, compliments of Capuder Fantasia PLLC
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February 26, 2008: The United States Supreme Court handed down its opinion in
Sprint/United Management Co. v. Mendelsohn, 128 S. Ct. 1140 (2008) (FindLaw site
opinion). The issue in this federal age discrimination case (ADEA) was whether the
plaintiff could present evidence to the jury about other alleged older
discrimination victims, where the decision made to terminate the other individuals
was not made by the same decision-maker that terminated the plaintiff.
- The employer (Sprint) contended that evidence of other alleged age
discrimination victims is inadmissible where the decision-makers for those
employer victims were different from the decision-makers taking action
against th plaintiff.
- The Supreme Court rejected the employer's argument and said that the
evidence of other victims might be admissible, even if different decision-
makers were involved. The trial court should conduct a "balancing test" for
admissibility of discrimination of other employees by different supervisors,
where the relevance of the other employees' situation is balanced against
unfair prejudice to the employer.
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October 25, 2007: In Colgan Air, Inc. v. West Virginia Human Rights Commission,
221 W. Va. 588, 656 S.E.2d 33 (1977) the West Virginia Supreme Court addressed
claims of harassment (based on religion and national origin) and retaliation by a
pilot, Rao Zahid Khan, and ruled that Colgan Air (a) was not liable for harassment
because it had policies and procedures prohibiting harassment and took swift and
decisive action after learning about the harassment, and (b) was not liable for
retaliation because Colgan Air terminated the employee (Mr. Khan) for a legitimate
and non-discriminatory reason--he failed to pass a mandatory FAA proficiency test
for pilots.
- Colgan Air was a 3-2 decision. Justices Davis, Maynard, and Benjamin joined
in the "per curiam" majority opinion, and Justice Albright dissented and
wrote an opinion, and Justice Starcher also dissented and wrote an
opinion. Both Justices Albright and Starcher agreed with the majority that
Mr. Khan properly lost his job because of his failure to pass the FAA
proficiency test, but dissented because they believed that Colgan Air was
properly held liable for the harassment (based on religion and national
origin).
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May 29, 2007: In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, 128 S. Ct. 2162
(2007) (FindLaw site opinion), the United States Supreme issued an important
decision in a sex discrimination case under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which substantially limited the time period available to assert a claim for pay
discrimination.
- Ledbetter filed a charge of sex discrimination with the EEOC in 1998 and
then later in the year retired. She claimed that, years earlier in her career
at Goodyear, male supervisors gave her bad performance reviews compared
to what men received. She claimed that Goodyear awarded raises based on
those performance reviews, so that her pay raises were reduced as a result
of the discriminatory performance reviews. Ledbetter went to trial and
persuaded the jury that the performance reviews, years before she filed
her EEOC charge, were discriminatory based on her sex, and the jury found
her rights had been violated and awarded her damages based on her lower
paychecks throughout her career. The trial judge entered a "judgment" in
Ledbetter's favor based on the jury's verdict. So Ledbetter won at trial on
her sex discrimination claim under Title VII. The Eleventh Circuit Court of
Appeals threw out the jury verdict and trial court judgment for Ledbetter,
and entered a judgment in favor of Goodyear, based on her failure to file
her EEOC charge within 180 days of when the performance reviews had
been conducted. The United States Supreme Court affirmed, meaning that
Goodyear won.
- Here is the problem for Ledbetter: Title VII of the Civil Rights act, which
governs sex discrimination in the workplace under federal law, says that an
employee must file a charge of discrimination within 180 days (or,
depending on the state, 300 days) after the discrimination occurred about
which the employee is complaining. The Courts, in examining when the
discrimination occurred (for purposes of figuring out when that 180 day
"clock" starts to run), have focused on the "discrete" employment "decision"
that caused some consequence (usually pay check-related) for the
employee. Based on when Ledbetter filed her EEOC charge in 1998, for it to
be timely, she had to be complaining about "decisions" which occurred
within the 180-day window preceding the charge. But the discriminatory
evaluations had occurred years before that, even though the reduced
paychecks about which she complained continued into that 180-day
window.
- The Supreme Court held that, in a situation where a decision (such as a
performance review) was made that discriminated against a female
employee by paying her less, the employee was required to file a charge of
discrimination with the EEOC within 180 days of when the decision was
made and communicated to her. That, for Ledbetter, would have been
within 180 days after the bad performance reviews were conducted and
the results were communicated to her. Since she did not file EEOC her
charge until years later, the charge was not timely under Title VII. The
consequence is that she loses all rights under the EEOC charge process,
and she loses all rights to file suit on the same claims in Court under federal
law.
- The Supreme Court's decision was a 5-4 vote that illustrates the ideological
divide on the Court. The 5 vote majority consisted of the "conservative"
block on the Court (Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas), and the 4
vote dissent consisted of the "liberal" block on the Court (Ginsburg,
Stevens, Souter, and Breyer).
- The decision got a great deal of press attention, being both praised
(Kiplinger Business Resource Center) and condemned (New York Times
Editorial). The criticism of the decision is generating political movement for
Congress to revise the law to undo the decision (NYT editorial and story
discussing those prospects). On April 24, 2008, the bill that would overturn
the decision failed to receive the 60 votes required in the Senate to begin
consideration of the bill (NYT Article), so the bill died for the time being.
Read the press accounts when the decision was issued from the New York
Times and the Washington Post. You can also listen, on the Oyez site, to
the oral argument in the case before the Supreme Court, and the
announcement at the Supreme Court of the decision and dissent. Or read
the transcript of the oral argument. You can also read the briefs in the
case at FindLaw.com. Read a summary of the decision in the Harvard Law
Review.
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