Court decides equal pay issue, grants 4 cases
on May 29, 2007 at 10:03 am
FINAL UPDATE 1:51 p.m.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday split 5-4 in rejecting a worker’s claim of unequal pay, finding that the time for filing such a lawsuit under Title VII begins running with the original decision on a pay differential; there is no new violation each time a later paycheck is issued. Only a new and separate act of discrimination starts a new filing period, the Court decided. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., wrote for the majority, and announced the decision — the only ruling on the merits Tuesday. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the dissenters, and announced their opinion orally. The case was Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire (05-1074).
In addition, the Court granted review of four new cases for decision at its next Term. The Court agreed to decide whether the federal law that protects railroads from discriminatory state taxes allows the carriers to challenge the state’s accounting method for fixing the market value of their property (CSX Transportation v. Georgia State Board, 06-1287). The Justices also said they would rule on the duty of federal courts to defer to a contract agreement between the parties to have broad court review of any arbitration award (Hall Street Associates v. Mattel, 06-989). The Court also said it would rule on a jurisdictional issue involving the U.S. Court of Claims, testing whether the six-year statute of limitations on Tucker Act claims limits the Claims Court’s reach (John R. Sand & Gravel v. U.S., 06-1164). The Court added review of a federal prisoner’s rights case (Ali v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 06-9130); that case involves a claim that prison officials lost an inmate’s religious and personal belongings when he was transferred from one prison to another. The inmate’s federal tort claim had been dismissed on the theory that a law enforcement officer’s loss of private property was exempted from a federal tort claim because of “sovereign immunity.”
The Court announced no action on a request to reconsider the denial of review of two major Guantanamo detainee cases (Boumediene v. Bush, 06-1195, and Al Odah v. U.S., 06-1196), or on a separate motion to defer that rehearing request while the detainees pursue limited remedies in the D.C. Circuit Court.
The Justices asked the U.S. Solicitor General to offer the federal government’s views on the kind of public disclosure of misspent federal funds that will bar an individual or company from suing for recovery of the funds under the False Claims Act. The case is U.S. ex rel. Bly-Magee v. Premo, 06-1269). The issue is whether a false claim is barred if the problem with misspent federal funds had been disclosed earlier when the disclosure was made by a state or local government entity, not a federal entity such as Congress or a federal administrative agency. The Ninth Circuit ruled that the bar applies even if the disclosure was by a state and local agency, but its decision conflicts with other courts’ rulings.
Among a long list of cases denied review Tuesday, the Court chose to bypass another attempt to test whether consecutive sentencing is covered by the series of Supreme Court rulings beginning with Apprendi v. New Jersey in 2000 limiting judges’ power to impose enhanced sentences. The issue in Washington v. Vandelft (06-1081) was whether it violates the Sixth Amendment jury trial right if a judge rules that several sentences imposed by a jury must be served consecutively, based on an added factual finding made by the judge, not the jury. The Court may have opted not to hear this particular appeal because the other side argued in reply that the states that had conflicting laws or court opinions on the issue have changed their laws to end the conflict in approach.
