U.S. Supreme Court Strictly Construes Statute Of Limitations For Title VII Discrimination Cases

On May 29, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court strictly construed the statute of limitations for filing EEOC charges under Title VII, and in doing so limited employees' abilities to bring discrimination complaints against their employers. In Ledbetter v. Goodyear, the Court held that an employee was barred from bringing a Title VII-based EEOC charge against her employer for pay discrimination on the basis of sex, where she based her claim on management decisions that occurred more than 180 days prior to the filing of the charge. Rejecting the employee's argument, the Court held that new violations do not occur, and new charging periods do not begin, each time an employer issues a paycheck to a female employee that is less than what similarly-situated male employees receive. Ledbetter resolved a split among appellate courts, and provides additional protection to employers from discrimination claims arising long before a claim is filed with the EEOC.

Title VII and the Continuing Violations Doctrine

Title VII prohibits workplace discrimination by employers, but provides that aggrieved employees generally must file charges containing their allegations with the EEOC within 180 or 300 days1 of an "unlawful employment practice." Title VII defines the term "unlawful employment practice" to include numerous adverse actions, including failure to hire, refusal to hire, refusal to promote, discharge, or other treatment discriminating against "any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment." In previous cases, most recently National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan (2002), the Supreme Court had distinguished between discrete acts of discrimination and hostile work environments, finding that the latter is generally viewed to be a single unlawful employment practice rather than a series of discrete violations. Employees may, therefore, seek to impose liability on employers for incidents extending beyond the charging period, either 180 or 300 days before on EEOC complaint is filed, so long as the incidents were a part of the hostile work environment and at least one of the incidents took place within the filing period. However, in some circumstances, when the conduct complained of is not a hostile work environment (particularly, pay differentials based on race or gender), there was still some potential confusion about the applicability of the "continuing violation" exception to the statute of limitations.

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