Ledbetter in congress: The limits of a narrow legislative override

Yale Law Journal

Volumn 117, Issue 5, 2008, Pages 971-979

  Eidmann, Kathryn A ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 41149131261     PISSN: 00440094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/20455815     Document Type: Note

References (55)

1. 127 S. Ct. 2162 (2007).
2. Id. at 2165-66.
3. Id. at 2178 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) ("Ledbetter was paid $3,727 per month; the lowest paid male area manager received $4,286 per month, the highest paid, $5,236."
4. (citing Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 421 F.3d 1169, 1174 (11th Cir. 2005);
5. Brief for the Petitioner at 4, Ledbetter, 127 S. Ct. 2162 (No. 05-1074), 2006 WL 2610990)).
6. Ledbetter, 127 S. Ct. at 2172;
7. see also 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e) (1) (2000).
8. Ledbetter, 127 S. Ct. at 2169.
9. H.R. 2831, 110th Cong. § 3 (as passed by House, July 31, 2007).
10. S. 1087, 110th Cong. (2007).
11. See infra notes 27-29, 32-33 and accompanying text.
12. Ledbetter, 127 S. Ct. at 2169.
13. If the claim is also covered by a state or local antidiscrimination law, the filing deadline is extended to three hundred days. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-s(e)(1) (2000).
14. Garcia v. Brockway, 503 F.3d 1092, 1097-98, 1097 n.5 (9th Cir. 2007)
15. (applying Ledbettef's reasoning to find time-barred a design-and-construction claim under the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3601-3619 (2000));
16. Walker v. Hoppe, 239 Fed. App'x 998, 999 (6th Cir. 2007) (barring plaintiffs claim for wrongful termination because the charge period ran from the date she was notified of her termination, not the date of the termination itself, and barring a hostile work environment claim because plaintiff "failed to specifically identify any intentionally discriminatory act by defendant that occurred within 300 days prior to the filing of her EEOC charge");
17. Mansourian v. Bd. of Regents of the Univ. of Cal., No. 03-02591, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77534, at *14-15 (E.D. Cal. Oct. 18, 2007) (applying Ledbetter's reasoning to bar female wrestlers' suit against a university for "blatantly exclud[ing] them from the wrestling program and then fail[ing] to give them a fair opportunity to obtain a position on the team by requiring them to compete against men, using men's rules") ;
18. Algie v. N. Ky. Univ., No. 06-23-JGW, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53347, at *13-19 (E.D. Ky. July 23, 2007) (relying on Ledbetter to bar a male employee's claim that female employees had received promotion opportunities while he had not).
19. Stocking v. AT&T Corp., 436 F. Supp. 2d 1014, 1015 (W.D. Mo. 2006),
20. vacated, No. 03-0421-HFS, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78188 (W.D. Mo. Oct. 22, 2007).
21. Id. at 1017.
22. See In re Union Pac. R.R. Employment Practices Litig., 479 F.3d 936 (8th Cir. 2007).
23. Defendant AT&T Corp.'s Motion To Reconsider Summary Judgment and Class Certification and Suggestions in Support at 11, Stocking, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78188 (No. 3-0421-HFS), 2007 U.S. Dist. Ct. Motions LEXIS 22848.
24. The court granted summary judgment to AT&T on other grounds and mentioned in dicta that plaintiff's disparate-impact cause of action remained viable because Ledbetter does not reach disparate impact claims. Stocking, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78188, at *3-4.
25. 490 U.S. 900, 909 (1989).
26. Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. No. 102-166, § 112, 105 Stat. 1071, 1078-79 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(2) (2000)).
27. See, e.g., Barnett v. Gonzales, No. 05-58-IMK-JSK, 2006 U.S. Dist LEXIS 70085, at *11-12 (N.D. W. Va. Sept. 27, 2006).
28. Merrill Lynch v. Curran, 456 U.S. 353, 381-82 (1982).
29. See William N. Eskridge, Jr., Interpreting Legislative Inaction, 87 MICH. L. REV. 67, 74-76 (1988).
30. See, e.g., Solid Waste Agency v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng'rs, 531 U.S. 159, 170 n.5 (2001) ("Absent ... overwhelming evidence of acquiescence, we are loath to replace the plain text and original understanding of a statute with an amended agency interpretation.").
31. Eskridge, supra note 21, at 71;
32. see also FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 157-58 (2000) (stating that Congress ratified the FDA's interpretation that it lacked the authority to regulate tobacco products because it enacted statutes indicating its awareness of and acquiescence to the FDA interpretation).
33. For example, Congress amended Title VII in the Civil Rights Act of 1991 to override a number of Supreme Court decisions, but did not override Meritor Savings Bank FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986).
34. In Faragher v. Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (1998), the Court interpreted this omission as ratifying the Meritor decision.
35. Id. at 804 n.4.
36. JEB BARNES, OVERRULED?: LEGISLATIVE OVERRIDES, PLURALISM, AND CONTEMPORARY COURT-CONGRESS RELATIONS 171 (2004) (hypothesizing that judges are disinclined to defer to Congress on these issues because judges are accustomed to scrutinizing legislation affecting suspect classes under the Equal Protection Clause).
37. Over time, the Court has limited which discriminatory practices constitute "continuing violations" (practices that are cumulative and may occur over a long period of time) and instead has characterized most challenged practices as discrete discriminatory acts. For example, in its initial rulings on the provision, the Court held that where an employee was impermissibly terminated due to her race or gender, the charge period ran from the date of termination (regardless of any subsequent employment relationship). Del. State Coll. v. Ricks, 449 U.S. 250 (1980) (holding that the EEOC charge period ran from the date tenure was denied, not the date of final termination, where a librarian was denied tenure allegedly due to his national origin but was given a nonrenewable one-year contract) ;
38. United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, 431 U.S. 553 (1977) (barring a flight attendant, who was terminated discriminatorily and later rehired but treated as a new employee for seniority purposes, from suing because she failed to file within ninety days of the initial termination).
39. The Court later held in Lorance v. AT&T Technologies, Inc., 490 U.S. 900 (1989), that facially neutral seniority systems allegedly adopted with discriminatory intent were actionable only on their date of adoption, not upon their application to individual employees.
40. In National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101 (2002), the Supreme Court further restricted the scope of continuing violations, stating in dicta that the category only clearly applied to hostile work environment claims.
41. Id. at 115.
42. Justice Denied? The Implications of the Supreme Court's Ledbetter v. Goodyear Employment Discrimination Decision: Hearing on H.R. 2831 Before the H. Comm. on Education and Labor, 110th Cong. 2 (2007) (statement of Rep. George Miller, Chairman, H. Comm. on Education and Labor).
43. E.g., 153 CONG. REC. H8946 (daily ed. July 30, 2007) (statement of Rep. Nadler) ("[A]nyone who says that discrimination in employment should be illegal but should not be enforceable if the employer can hide the discrimination for 6 months is really saying let the discrimination go on forever.");
44. id. at H8949 (statement of Rep. Wasserman Schultz) ("In the real world, discrimination is subtle and takes years to become evident. However, Justice Alito ruled that victims have only 180 days after a discriminatory decision has been made to file suit even if that employee would have no way of knowing about it. This standard is impossible to meet.").
45. H.R. REP. NO. 110-237, at 17 (2007).
46. See James J. Brudney, Congressional Commentary on Judicial Interpretation of Statutes: Idle Chatter or Telling Response?, 93 MICH. L. REV. 1, 6-7 (1994) ("[G]iven ample evidence that Congress today is more than willing to override Supreme Court decisions by enacting new or modified statutory language, one might question how much weight, if any, should be given to an expression of disapproval from Congress other than an override contained in precise statutory text." (citation omitted)).
47. Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. No. 102-166, 105 Stat. 1071 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(2) (2000)).
48. S. REP. NO. 101-315, at 54 (1990).
49. No relevant language changed between the two versions of the bill, and there was no Senate report submitted with the Civil Rights Act of 1991. H.R. REP. NO. 102-40, pt. I, at 1 (1991),
50. reprinted in 1991 U.S.C.CA.N. 549, 549. For these reasons, the 1990 Senate report has been considered an authoritative indication of legislative intent for the 1991 Act.
51. See Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 127 S. Ct. 2162, 2183 n.5 (2007) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting).
52. 137 CONG. REC. 29,046,29,047 (1991).
53. Ledbetter, 127 S. Ct. at 2169 n.2 (citations omitted).
54. See William N. Eskridge, Jr., Overriding Supreme Court Statutory Interpretation Decisions, 101 YALE L.J. 331, 375 (1991).
55. BARNES, supra note 25, at 179.