Pay-bias ruling: Each check is a new discriminatory act

A reminder about pay-bias claims: Double check your state laws. They may be more stringent than federal laws. Here’s an example.
The New Jersey Supreme Court said a state trial court ruled incorrectly when it used federal law to dismiss three university professors’ pay discrimination claims.
In 2007, the professors filed suit, claiming they were paid less than similarly-situated men and younger women at the same university — in violation of New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination.
The trial court based its decision to dismiss the case on the U.S. Supreme Court’s famous 2007 ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., which said the statute of limitations for an equal-pay lawsuit begins at the date the pay was agreed upon, not at the date of the most recent paycheck.
And since the decisions that affected the professors’ pay occurred more than two years before they filed suit, the trial court dismissed the case.
Overturned
But the New Jersey Supreme Court said the trial court was mistaken to use federal law to dismiss the case. The justices said that long before the Ledbetter case, New Jersey law has said that each paycheck is a new discriminatory act (similar to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 which was passed in response to the original Ledbetter case).
So even though the initial pay decision was made more than two years ago, the state’s highest court ruled the professors’ case could proceed.
New Jersey law has one caveat: An employee can only receive damages for discriminatory pay going back two years from when a lawsuit is filed.
Cite: Alexander v. Seton Hall University