Corporate America is facing significant new challenges this spring over pay discrimination lawsuits, thanks to a new law that opens the door to discrimination complaints and makes them significantly more difficult to defend against.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed into law in January to undo the U.S. Supreme Court’s widely publicized Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire decision in 2007. In that case, the court ruled that the plaintiff, Lilly Ledbetter, couldn’t sue Goodyear for pay discrimination because she did not file her complaint within six months of the first instance of discrimination—even though the discrimination persisted for 19 years before she discovered it.
