No to Pay Discrimination; No to Frivolous Lawsuits
Posted by Kevin on January 27th, 2009
The House is slated today to vote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (S. 181), which purports to eliminate “pay discrimination” by ending the 180-day statute of limitations on filing a claim of sex-based wage discrimination. Instead, it would pay back key political allies of the Democratic Majority by paving the way for endless frivolous lawsuits that have more to do with advancing the trial lawyers’ interests than in ensuring that no one is denied “equal pay for equal work.”
House Republicans are unified in their opposition to workplace discrimination, their support of American civil rights laws which protect against discrimination in the workplace, and their commitment to the timely resolution of discrimination claims. In a policy statement today, the House Republican Leadership outlined the GOP opposition to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act:
Meaningful statutes of limitations in fact-intensive discrimination cases are crucial to the fair administration of justice. The prompt assertion of employment discrimination permits employers to defend against claims that arise from employment decisions instead of having to litigate claims that are years or decades old. Moreover, effective statutes of limitations benefit employees by encouraging the prompt discovery, assertion and resolution of employment discrimination claims so that workplace discrimination can be remedied without delay.
Others have voiced their concern about the provisions of the so-called “Fair Pay Act”:
The Wall Street Journal:
For the tort bar, this is pure gold. It would create a new legal business in digging up ancient workplace grievances. This would also be made easier by the bill’s new definition of discrimination. Companies could be sued not merely for outright discrimination but for unintentional acts that result in pay disparities.
Since these supposed wrongs could be compounded over decades, the potential awards would be huge. Most companies would feel compelled to settle such claims rather than endure the expense and difficulty of defending allegations about long-ago behavior. The recipe here is file a suit, get a payday. And the losers would be current and future employees, whose raises would be smaller as companies allocate more earnings to settle claims that might pop up years after litigating employees had departed.
Freedom Works:
This eliminates almost any statute of limitations in practically all claims of discrimination available under federal law. Removing the safe-guard of a common-sense statute of limitations is harmful to both employer and employee. Not resolving issues of discrimination in a timely manner subjects wronged employees to unnecessary hardship and further discrimination. At the same time, this imposes a severe burden on employers who must defend themselves against decades old claims, requiring massive amounts of record keeping and legal fees. Years removed from an incident, the facts would become increasingly hard to verify on behalf of either party.
Heritage Foundation’s blog The Foundry:
The Ledbetter Act…has less to do with stamping out discriminatory practices than making money for plaintiff’s attorneys. By eliminating the filing deadline, it would actually undermine the law’s strong incentive to resolve cases quickly, and instead encourage savvy parties to strategically delay suit. While they sit on their claims, the passage of time would drive up damages available in court and allow defensive evidence to fade. In this way, other victims who are unaware of discrimination would continue to suffer its effects, while the would-be plaintiff games the law for private gain.
David Freddoso of National Review Online:
The bill would…require the Labor Department to use a highly inaccurate methodology for measuring whether a federal contractor is discriminating. The “pay-grade” method has been repeatedly rejected in court when discrimination cases have come forward, including by a unanimous Supreme Court decision written by Justice William Brennan. Currently, the Labor Department uses a much more accurate statistical regression analysis to find discrimination. It compares employees in similar occupations and situations to see that they’re being treated equally. The old, discredited method crudely lumps employees of different occupations who happen to fall within the limits of arbitrary pay scales. Not only does the new bill require the use of the bad methodology, but it also explicitly forbids the accurate method, apparently just because it is less likely to suggest discrimination.
House Republicans are united behind the principle that no American should be unfairly discriminated against because of sex, age, race, or religion. The so-called “Fair Pay Act,” however, would add a heavy burden to business during a recession and would allow for unfettered suits long after any alleged discrimination took place. This bill is nothing more than a reward for the trial lawyer lobby.
Permalink |
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 12:43 pm and is filed under General.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Leave a Reply
January 27th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Glad to see Republicans are fighting this. Keep up the good fight. We need economic stimulus for businesses not for trial lawyers
January 28th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Please do not support the proposed stimulas package. It is a waste of tax payer money for Liberal demoocracts and does not create jobs or stimulate the economy. None of the last billions of dollars hes helped anyone especially the banks. So please oppose the democrate give away. Thanks You, Robert L. Huff