Supreme Ct Narrow Interpretations

The original thought behind our constitution was to protect the individual against the excesses of a powerful govt. The present Court appears to have taken the opposite tack. It is deciding to protect large businesses and govt institutions against the clams of the citizens.

The Court is accomplishing this by a very narrow, interpretation of the law. It is also being accomplished by limiting citizens rights to go to court to seek relief from what the citizen believes to be an injustice.

For instance in a recent case Lilly Ledbetter a supervisor at Goodyear Tire and Rubber sued her employer for paying her less than the male supervisors. The suit was filled under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. This Act prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Title VII requires that the complaint be filed within ninety days of the alleged discrimination. Since the 1960’s the Courts and the Equal Employment Commission had ruled that that the 180 days began every time the employee received an unequal paycheck.

This Supreme ruled that the 180 days began when the first unequal paycheck was received. In Ms. Ledbetter’s case this was 19 years earlier. Ms. Ledbetter had been underpaid for 19 years.

This is very unfair. Wages are a subject that is usually not discussed particularly when there is discrimination between employees, Secondly the Supreme Court’s interpretation means that if an employer discriminates for six months without getting caught they are exempt from future discrimination lawsuits for that individual. Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg in her dissent asked Congress for new legislation to clarify and restore the original intent of the 1964 Act.

Senator Edward Kennedy(D) of Massachusetts prepared “The Fair Pay Act”. The Act reinstated the 180 days would begin whenever a discriminatory paycheck was made. The bill passed the House of Representatives. President Bush THREATENED TO VETO the bill. Without republican support there was not enough votes in the Senate to override a veto SO THE VOTE FAILED.

President Bush said the bill would cause a flood of lawsuits. Legislation should pass or fail on the merits of its content and NOT ON THE NUMBER OF LAWSUITS SMALL OR LARGE THAT IT GENERATES. Actually it would not have caused a flood of lawsuits because the law never had.

With the election of Pres. Obrama and a new Congress legislation was passed to rstore the 180 day period to begin from the date of the last dicriminatory payment.