Closing the Gap Legislatively: Consequences of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

With the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, Congress both reversed the result of the widely criticized Ledbetter Supreme Court case and expanded the statute of limitations for all employment discrimination claims relating to compensation. Under the Act, a compensation-based employment discrimination claim\u27s statute of limitations period of three hundred days begins to run whenever an employee is affected by a discriminatory practice. The language of the Act is far-reaching, but just five months after the Act was signed into law, the Supreme Court stepped in again to narrow the Act\u27s application to pension benefits in AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen. This Note examines the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and analyzes its potential legal implications, in light of its judicial precedent in the Ledbetter and Morgan cases and subsequent narrowing in the Supreme Court\u27s Hulteen case, as well as its possible economic implications for employers and employees