Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Miscellaneous Blogs -> Begging the Question

Miscellaneous

: Begging the Question

Better Get the Led(better) Out

By "Milbarge" and "Fitz-Hume"

Via How Appealing a few days ago, I came across this bizarre rant in the Connecticut Law Tribune by one Karen Lee Torre (background on her here via Simple Justice). It's about the case of Lilly Ledbetter, and it just totally misses the point.

Ledbetter was an Alabama factory worker who believed she had been the victim of gender-based wage discrimination. So she sued. Or tried to. The Supreme Court held that her claim was time-barred because she didn't sue when the pay difference first occurred -- many years ago, well outside the statute of limitations. The House just passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would overturn the decision and essentially provide that each new paycheck is a new act of discrimination, starting anew the limitations period. The Senate will probably have to put up with some grandstanding filibustering, but it will eventually pass the Act as well, and President-elect Obama has promised to sign it.

Torre's piece is titled "Lilly Ledbetter Is No Victim." Her argument is that Ledbetter was not a victim of discrimination, and thus should not be able to sue. She bases her argument on facts such as Ledbetter's performance reviews and Ledbetter's waiting until after taking her retirement benefits to sue her former employer. But, to use a cliche, that's putting the cart before the horse. The Ledbetter case, and the new law, are solely about the timing of suits like Ledbetter's.

In short, the merits don't matter, at least not at this point. The issue before the Court and Congress is whether people like Ledbetter can get in the courtroom in the first place, to have a chance to argue the merits of their cases. Now, reasonable people can debate that as a policy question. One reason for statutes of limitations generally is that it's harder to determine the merits of older claims. But it's question-begging to assert that because someone shouldn't succeed on the merits, the statute of limitations should bar her from trying.

Frankly, this point is a glaringly obvious one. (Example: On Tuesday, the Supreme Court held unanimously that a statute of limitations shouldn't apply to prevent a Texas prisoner from getting into federal court to present his habeas corpus claim, but explicitly disavowed any judgment on the underlying merits of the case.) I shall leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions about either the intelligence or intellectual honesty of someone -- especially a lawyer -- who misses this point so badly.

Full post as published by Begging the Question on January 14, 2009 (boomark / email).