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The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (, ) is a federal statute in the United States that was the first bill signed into law by President Barack Obama on January 29, 2009. The Act amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The new act states that the 180-day statute of limitations for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination resets with each new paycheck affected by that discriminatory action. The law directly addressed ''Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.'', , a U.S. Supreme Court decision that the statute of limitations for presenting an equal-pay lawsuit begins on the date that the employer makes the initial discriminatory wage decision, not at the date of the most recent paycheck. An earlier bill seeking to supersede the ''Ledbetter'' decision, also called the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, was first introduced in the 110th United States Congress but was not successfully enacted at that time, as it was passed by the House but failed in the Senate. During the campaign for the 2008 elections, the Democrats criticized Republicans for defeating the 2007 version of the bill, citing Republican presidential candidate John McCain's opposition to the bill and candidate Barack Obama's support. ==Court rulings== (詳細はLilly Ledbetter, a production supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Alabama, filed an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, six months before her early retirement in 1998. The courts gave opposite verdicts, first supporting the complainant and later opposing; in conclusion the complaint brought the case to the attention of the Supreme Court. The latter ruled in 2007 by a 5-4 majority vote that Ledbetter's complaint was time-barred because the discriminatory decisions relating to pay had been made more than 180 days prior to the date she filed her charge, as explained by Justice Samuel Alito. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissenting opinion proposed an interpretation according to which the law runs from the date of any paycheck that contains an amount affected by a prior discriminatory pay decision. The ''Ledbetter'' decision was cited by federal judges in 300 cases before the LLFPA was passed. These cases involved not only Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, but also the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Fair Housing Act, Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act and Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Among the first to criticize the Court's decision that Ledbetter's complaint was time-barred was Marcia Greenberger, president of the National Women's Law Center, that saw in the ruling a "setback for women and a setback for civil rights" and called Ginsburg's opinion a "clarion call to the American people that this slim majority of the court is headed in the wrong direction." Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, also condemned the decision, saying, “If employers can keep the discrimination hidden for a period of time, they can continue to discriminate without being held accountable.” On the other side, the majority's findings were applauded by the US Chamber of Commerce, that called it a "fair decision" that "eliminates a potential wind-fall against employers by employees trying to dredge up stale pay claims." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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