Can anyone have seriously imagined that a retired worker from Goodyear would rise to national prominence over a case she lost at the U.S. Supreme Court regarding statute of limitations? And yet, at tonight’s Democratic National Convention, Lilly Ledbetter will take center stage for a few minutes.

No doubt we’ll hear about the Paycheck Fairness Act bill because she’s not endorsing anyone for President.  “Equal Pay for Equal Work” has been one of the talking points of the week.   

There’s been lots of talk of late about the act, which arose from the Ledbetter case (though there was also a Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act bill out there as well). One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Rosa DeLauro commented on it on the Huffington Post late last week and I summarized the latest debate about the bill in a post as well.  Businesses and others have been critical of the act, even though it passed the U.S. House of Representatives last month  (Heritage WebMemo, 7/30; Examiner, 8/6; OpenMarket, 8/6). 

What’s missing from the debate about the bill, unfortunately, is a discussion about what the bill is about and should be about.   It’s not really about pay equity — after all, we already have the Equal Pay Act for that. It’s really about allowing indivdiuals to recover much more in the way of damages than they could otherwise recover (though you’d be hard-pressed to make heads or tails of it from the seemingly technical language used).   And frankly, there’s nothing wrong with advancing that goal if there was a fair debate on the merits.

But unfortunately, the public debate on the bill seems to fall into the classic stereotypes that each side rolls out with a piece of new legislation.  Proponents of the bill suggest that those who are for the bill are FOR pay equity, and those opposing the bill are AGAINST pay equity, which is just hyperbole.  Opponents of the bill have used hyperbole of their own, ignoring the fact that corporations have had to comply with the Equal Pay Act for years and that many are well-suited to address such claims.    

It’s hard to see how some changes will have any real impact on employers.  For instance, one part changes the language regarding a “factor other than sex” defense that an employer can raise to a “bona fide factor other than sex”.   While one can debate the theorhetical differences in language, the real-world effect of the change is probably minimal for employers.  After all, do employers really make salary decisions and think “well, I can explain the differences with reason, but is it a ‘bona fide’ reason”?  And small businesses will be excluded from the act, in the same way that they are excluded from coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

On the other hand, proponents of the bill gloss over the fact that removing some caps on compensatory and punitive damages — as the bill proposes — could have a significant effect on employers and the likelihood of lawsuits (one need only look at the rise of Title VII litigation after the Civil Rights Act of 1991 was passed for a historical perspective). 

Proponents also ignore the fact that the punitive damages portion of the bill would mark a change in philosophy regarding punitive damages (to see the changes in context, click here).  For example, one change would allow punitive damages to be awarded even when no intentional discrimination has been proved — which contradicts the traditional notion that punitive damages should be issued to punish the defendant for some type of malice or reckless behavior. 

The political reality is that some version of this bill is going to get passed and employers need to keep a watchful eye on the bill.  We’ll see in the upcoming weeks whether a compromise is eventually fashioned (much like the compromise being done for the ADA Amendments Act of 2008) or whether this is just political posturing in an election year.  Either way, here’s (perhaps foolishly) hoping that the debate on the bill’s merits gets more substantive than just slogans.

(At Point of Law, Walter Olson’s other site, Carter Wood provides his insights into tonight’s happenings as well.)

• Raft-flip mishap at Riviera Beach, Fla. water park: family’s collective weight far exceeded posted limit on warning signs, they’re mulling suit [Palm Beach Post]
• New Rigsby/Katrina depositions include sensational new allegations of Scruggs misconduct as well as touches of pathos [Point of Law]
• “Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet” [The Onion]
• So much coverage of Hasbro vs. Scrabulous but so little solid reportage by which readers might judge strength of copyright infringement claims [Obbie]
• City of Seattle spokesman says police actions in shootout with gunman might have “saved countless other lives”, which hasn’t saved city from being sued by injured bystander [Seattle Times]
• First the vaccine-autism scare, now this? “Mercury militia” crows after FDA agrees to move forward with statement on possible risks of dental amalgam, but maybe there’s not a whole lot for them to chew on [Harriet Hall, Science-Based Medicine]
• Of lurid allegations in paralegal Angela Robinson’s suit against Texas plaintiff potentate Richard Laminack, the most printable are the ones about chiseling fen-phen clients and not paying overtime [American Lawyer; Laminack response]
• U.K. attorney suing former bosses for £19 million: that wasn’t me at the interview, that was my alternative personality [Times Online]
• Allegation: Foxwoods croupier thought he could mutter lewd comments in Spanish about Anglo female patrons, but guess what, one was entirely fluent [NY Post]
• “Richard Branson claims to own all uses of ‘Virgin’” [three years ago on Overlawyered]

Second grade teacher Marie Jarry called in sick one day to her job at the Southington, Ct. public schools, which perhaps was not strictly accurate, since the next day she and her husband won first prize in a “Hottest Wife, Ugliest Husband” contest on the Howard Stern show. Now she’s suing over being pressured to resign from her job; school authorities invoked a school “morality clause” and were really mean about the little sick day fib (The Smoking Gun, Jun. 27, with copy of complaint). Writes Daniel Schwartz: “In thinking about this case, I can’t help but think of the irony of this case compared with a case down south last month which held that a female employee was subjected to a ‘hostile work environment’ because of the ‘vulgar radio programming’ in her workplace. And what was that vulgar programming? The Howard Stern show of course … While the particulars of this case will play out in court, what is striking about the complaint is the unwillingness to acknowledge that the teacher bears any responsibility for what occurred.” (Connecticut Employment Law Blog, Jul. 2).

• Are plaintiffs’ attorneys judge-shopping by filing and dismissing and refiling identical class-action complaints in the highly-publicized restaurant menu case against Applebee’s? [Cal Biz Lit]

• You won’t be surprised that most of the nine worst business stories picked by BMI involve spoon-feeding by plaintiffs’ attorneys to a credulous press. [Business & Media Institute]
• “There’s no justification whatsoever for the agency to take any kind of action,” said Julie Vallese, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission. “The claims being made about the dangers of shower curtains are phantasmagorical. It’s ridiculous.” Yeah, but the lawsuits are bound to happen anyway. [NY Daily News]
• Jack Thompson stays in the news when U.S. Marshals pay him a visit after a letter to a judge. [GamePolitics (h/t J.L.)]
• “A City lawyer who is demanding £19 million in compensation for work-place bullying faked a nervous breakdown to secure a larger payout, an employment tribunal was told.” [London Times via ATL]
• Did defensive medicine almost kill a patient when doctor worries more about potential lawsuit than whether nurse could save patient’s life? Heck if I know, but the underlying medicine is debated in the comments. [EM Physician blog]
• Hair-stylist fined £4,000 for “hurt feelings” after refusing to hire a Muslim stylist who wouldn’t show her hair at work. [Daily Mail (h/t Slim); earlier on Overlawyered]
• Disturbing turn in the Adam Reposa disciplinary hearing over his obscene gesture in court: state bar introduces satirical magazine as evidence because they “thought it was indicative of Reposa’s lack of respect for the law and the court system.” [Texas Lawyer/law.com] Mind you, this is the same Texas legal discipline system that refused to take action against Fred Baron and gave a slap on the wrist to the lawyers who tried to fake evidence in a product liability suit against Chrysler. As long as your priorities are straight.

Whatever happened to the old ginger-ale “champagne” ruse? “A woman contends that her job as a stripper caused her to have a one-car wreck on her way home from work last year, according to a lawsuit filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court. Patsy Hamaker’s suit says part of her job as a dancer at The Furnace club in Birmingham involved encouraging customers to buy her alcoholic drinks.” (Eric Velasco, “Stripper’s suit in Jefferson County court says her job led to wreck, injuries”, Birmingham News, May 27).

I’m quoted on the subject today in a piece by Ben Waxman on The Next Mayor, a “Rethinking Philadelphia” blog created by the Philly Daily News, WHYY and the Committee of Seventy. My City Journal article “Fixing the Civil Service Mess” from 1997 is here.

When American Airlines instituted a $2 per bag charge for skycap service at Boston’s Logan Airport, the workers’ tip income dropped, some travelers seeing the change as a reason to stop tipping. A lawyer representing the workers sued American and a month ago a federal jury awarded them more than $325,000. In addition, the Massachusetts legislature recently enacted a law providing that businesses can be hit with triple damages in wage/hour disputes. Now American Airlines has decreed a complete ban on tipping at check-in at Logan, while also ordering its contractor to raise the skycaps’ wages from the former nominal $5.15 an hour to $12-$15, well above the minimum wage but well below what they had been getting in tips. The workers’ lawyer is of course charging retaliation and has asked a judge to forbid the change. (AP/Boston Herald, Boston Globe; Boston Herald editorial).

The newly composed work tested at 97.4 decibels, so the performance by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra was called off. “The cancellation is, so far, probably the most extreme consequence of the new law, which requires employers in Europe to limit workers’ exposure to potentially damaging noise and which took effect for the entertainment industry this month.” (Sarah Lyall, “No Fortissimo? Symphony Told to Keep It Down”, New York Times, Apr. 20). For more on British and EU workplace-noise rules and their application to Scottish bagpipes, barking police dogs, gunfire during infantry training, military brass bands, and so forth, see Nov. 19, 2005.

Otherwise, the employer may just be setting itself up for wage-hour suits based on the premise that the after-hours use constitutes uncompensated overtime, says Mitch Danzig, “an attorney in the San Diego office of Boston-based Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo. Danzig advises his clients to give BlackBerrys only to employees who are exempt from overtime laws. ‘Plaintiffs’ firms are trolling for this,’ he said. ‘Now what you’re seeing on [plaintiffs'] firms’ Web sites are, “Have you been assigned a BlackBerry or a phone? If so, give us a call.”‘” (Ashby Jones, WSJ law blog, Apr. 22; Tresa Baldas, NLJ, Apr. 28). More: Jeffrey Hirsch, Workplace Prof Blog.

The law firm of Leeds Morelli & Brown has recently been embroiled in controversy over episodes in which it has settled batches of employment discrimination claims while contemporaneously entering agreements in which the defendants agree to hire it (the Leeds Morelli firm) for substantial sums. Now an African-American woman who was once a vice president at Prudential Insurance and then sued the company for racial bias as a Leeds Morelli client “is asking a federal judge to set aside an arbitration award, alleging her lawyers were given improper financial inducement to keep her claim and hundreds of others out of court. According to Linda Guyden, the company paid $5 million to the law firm representing her and 358 other employees, in return for which Prudential’s total exposure was capped at $10 million and the claims were kept secret just as the company was about to be taken public.” (Mary Pat Gallagher, “Bias Plaintiff Says Lawyer Sell-Out Warrants Vacating of Arbitration”, New Jersey Law Journal, Apr. 8). For a cognate controversy over Leeds Morelli’s settlement of employment claims with Nextel Corp., see Leigh Jones, “Columbia’s Simon Blasts Professors’ Role in Nextel Bias Case”, National Law Journal, Nov. 26; Bluestone, New York Attorney Malpractice Blog, Feb. 12, 2007.

Employment litigation Hall of Fame? “Jérôme Kerviel, the rogue trader accused of losing his bank €5 billion (£3.9 billion) in one of the financial world’s biggest scandals, has hit upon a new money-making scheme — he is to sue his former employer [Société Générale of Paris] for unfair dismissal.” (Adam Sage, “Jerome Kerviel to sue SocGen over sacking”, Times Online (U.K.), Apr. 3).

As universities grow apprehensive of lawsuits filed by junior faculty hired for tenure-track positions but then passed over for tenure, they are accelerating the trend toward classifying more junior positions as non-tenure-track — hastening, perhaps, the eventual demise of the tenure system entirely. (Robert Weissberg, Minding the Campus, Apr. 10). P.S. Our post has prompted a discussion at Workplace Prof Blog.

“Soldiers’ families reacted angrily after it emerged the Ministry of Defence awarded £202,000 to an office employee who strained his back picking up a printer. The ‘disgraceful’ decision left the civil servant with a larger payout than almost all the servicemen injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.” (Stephen Adams, “MoD office worker gets £200,000 payout”, Telegraph, Mar. 18).

I’m covering a judge’s $100 million ruling against the coffee chain at Point of Law.

“Police officer Michael Harrington sued after getting snookered out of $44.63 in overtime pay. He later settled for $10,500 and sought about $46,000 in attorney fees. If that seems out of proportion, Los Angeles’ 2nd District Court of Appeal agrees with you. The court reduced the fee award to $500. ‘At the risk of understatement,’ Justice Miriam Vogel wrote last week, ‘there is no way on Earth this case justified the hours purportedly billed by Harrington’s lawyers.’” (Mike McKee, The Recorder, Mar. 5).

I’ve got some thoughts on the subject at Point of Law.

Another instance of the decidedly Pickwickian sense in which some in the legal profession use the term pro bono:

Last year, a federal judge awarded nearly $1 million in attorney fees, costs and prejudgment interest to Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in a case involving workers at a restaurant in New York’s Chinatown. Chan v. Triple 8 Palace, No. 1:03-cv-06048 (S.D.N.Y.). The New York firm took the case pro bono in an attempt to collect unpaid tips on behalf of the workers.

The firm succeeded. But its request for attorney fees turned heads, especially since the workers received about $700,000.

“And you also had a large law firm telling everybody that they’re doing the case pro bono,” said Daniel A. Hochheiser, a partner at New York’s Hochheiser Hochheiser & Inwood, which represented the restaurant.

“The general understanding of pro bono is that you’re volunteering your time and effort without compensation, or without expectation of compensation,” Hochheiser said.

The case is being compared in several quarters to the Seattle school-suit fee request discussed in this space Sept. 7 and Sept. 23. (Amanda Bronstad, National Law Journal, Feb. 8; Elefant; Cal Blog of Appeal (to whom we’re happy to send the traffic). We briefly noted the Skadden fee ruling last summer.

P.S. Commenters point out — and it’s appropriate to note here as well — that Skadden, unlike Davis Wright Tremaine, says it’s giving away the fee award.

Looks like some have found ways to game the state’s employment rules:

Five Long Island school districts falsely reported to the state that a part-time private attorney was a full-time employee in each district, enabling him to earn a public pension of nearly $62,000 and health benefits for life.

At the same time, the districts paid his law firm more than $2.5 million in fees, records show.

The attorney, Lawrence W. Reich, was listed as full time by five different school districts at once - Baldwin, Copiague, East Meadow, Bellmore-Merrick High School and Harborfields, according to records supplied by the New York State comptroller’s office. In 2000, for example, he was credited with working 1,271 days in one year. The year before, he was credited with working 1,286 days….

Under Internal Revenue Service rules, a person cannot be paid both as an independent contractor and employee for the same job.

“Clearly, it’s an attempt to manipulate the system so that a person can receive Cadillac fringe benefits that a person in the private sector would otherwise not be entitled to,” said Paul Sabatino, a municipal lawyer who is also former Suffolk chief deputy county executive. …

“I followed essentially a practice that was very common among my colleagues in the industry,” [Reich] said.

(Sandra Peddie, “Five districts falsely reported lawyer job status”, Newsday, Feb. 15).