So the other day, my blogfriend Luis wrote about a recent Supreme Court decision. Luis was pretty unhappy with it.
The gist of the case is this: A lady sued the company she used to work for because they screwed her. She got fewer raises and her raises were lower than men she worked with or, in some cases, hadn’t worked as long as she had at the company. When you look at the facts of the case, there’s pretty much no denying it; she got the shaft. This went on over years and years until she finally realized how much less she was getting, and started the complaint process.
But the problem is that the law that covers the situation, that she sued under, says that you have to start the complaint process within 180 days of the event you’re complaining about. In her case, the company claimed that the event she was complaining about was her original placement into her job- and that had happened years ago, not within 180 days. Therefore, her complaint was too late and her entire case (and winnings in the lawsuit) should be thrown out.
The problem is that the discrimination she suffered went on for years, and what’s more in that first 180 days she probably didn’t even KNOW what the other (male) workers were being paid, let alone see their later ongoing pay raises.
So the question that was in front of the Supreme Court was whether or not the 180 day limit was absolute, or if in this situation she deserved that the spirit of the law be more upheld.
This Supreme Court has done a lot of this kind of thing lately- they’ll find in favor of the big corporation, or the more right-wing cause, but rather than change the underlying principle of the law they’ll find a technicality and use that. They’ll say that the person that filed a suit doesn’t have “standing” to file the suit, so it’s thrown out- thereby getting the results that the Republicans and President Bush might want politically, but which would be really changing the law.
In this case, the letter of the law and the spirit of the law seem to be in conflict. The spirit of the law is clear as a bell; it’s not right to screw over your employees and discriminate against them on the basis of race, gender, etc. But the letter of the law is fuzzier, and there’s a lot of room for interpreting it in a way that would screw this lady- which is what the Court did.
Now, Luis is pretty pissed off about this. (It’s something that I love about him and his writing; he’s got real passion for social justice. I do too, but I’m perhaps a bit more moderate than he is about some stuff.) He says, quite rightly, that this opens the door for all kinds of companies to screw over their employees.
In my role as a union representative, we sometimes come across this issue. An employee is harmed by some practice of the employer. They have a 20 day deadline to file a grievance asking for the situation to be rectified- but the 20 day clock starts not when it actually happens, but when the employee DISCOVERS the problem. Same thing goes for the union- we can grieve things, but we have a 20 day deadline that starts when we find out about something.
Is this good or bad?
Well, I hate to disagree with Luis, but in this case I don’t have a ton of heartache with what the Supreme Court did. Sure, I think that social justice and the spirit of the law demand that the plaintiff be made whole and her company punished for its discrimination. But the courts should not be finding in favor of someone just because they have a really fuzzy, touchy-feely kind of case.
If the courts do, then they’re not deciding cases based on the law; they’re deciding them based on what’s popular or what people think today. Tomorrow’s feelings on an issue might change. And even when it stinks, I think the rule of law is important, and that we should stick to it whenever possible.
If the LAW is wrong, then we can change the law.
An example would be gay marriage. I personally don’t have a problem with it; in fact, I support it, because I think it will help both gay folks and society in the long run. But I also think that we shouldn’t have the courts making up reasons to allow it if it’s banned in the law; instead, I think we should change the law.
The flip side to this is also true. If the law is unconstitutional, then the law should be thrown out- even if it’s popular in the public opinion. For example, laws banning two different races were plainly unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Constitution, and they were rightfully thrown out- even in southern states where the majority of the people might have been against those marriages.
What’s important is that we have a consistent, fair rule of law. Then, when the laws stink, we change the laws. If we don’t do it this way, what we wind up with is a court system that cannot be counted on; instead, we have a court system that changes its decisions, not based on law but on popular public or political opinion.
The beauty of the Constitution is that it doesn’t say you have freedom of speech, unless you’re a Nazi and saying things that people don’t like. Once you have freedom of speech in the Constitution, you ALWAYS have it.
As much as I respect Luis, I think he’s off base on this one. I totally hear his argument, and am even very compelled to say that he’s right and the Court had wiggle room to find in favor of this plaintiff, but ultimately the law says what it says.
The good news is that Congress is already saying they’re going to fix this law immediately and put some real teeth into it. Hopefully they fix all kinds of discrimination laws at the same time and make them even tougher on violators- maybe with 5X punitive damages or something- so companies and individuals quit discriminating and start doing the Right Thing.