Watch Out Business: Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Passes in House

Law and More reports that the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed in the House:

If it passes the Senate, it will overturn the U.S. Supreme Court ruling which placed time limits [180 days, with some situations allowing 300 days] in the filing of wage discrimination complaints.  That means there will be no statue of limitations on these grievances.  There’s more.  It would permit companies to be sued not only for outright discrimination but also for what can be proved to be unintentional discrimination.

Business be scared.  Very scared.  The 111th Congress began off passing H.R. 11 – the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, 247-171.  This Act has been called “Trial Lawyer Bonanza” in an opinion piece in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

One of my classes last semester was Employment Discrimination and our professor said there was an extremely good chance of this becoming law. I haven’t read the act, but the main gist of it is to remove the statute of limitations for people who feel they have been discriminated against by their employer. If you’re not familiar with legal terminology, most laws that give people the right to sue have a statute of limitations which is basically a timeframe in which a person must sue or else they’ve they’ve lost that right to sue. The idea is to prevent legal proceedings in which there is still fresh evidence.

In the case of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a complete removal of a statute of limitations is just a terrible idea. I would concede to extending the present statute of limitations up to one year or even two years, but without a statute of limitations, I can guarantee there will be an increase in litigation against businesses, most of which will be unwarranted.