Busy Supreme Court Issues Four Rulings

The Alcee Hastings Factor

Dividing 5-4, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that federal voting rights law does not require the creation of a new legislative district when that would include a racial minority group that has less than 50 percent of the population, as a remedy when minority voters’ rights have been diluted. Only when a group of minority voters would form a majority in a single-member district must it be created as a remedy under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Court ruled in Bartlett v. Strickland (07-689).

How many times did Alcee and other African Americans run unsuccessfully for city and county commissions until single member districts favoring minorities became a reality? Ask Harvey Milk!

The Howard Finkelstein Factor


** By a 7-2 vote, the Court ruled that a state is not responsible for the delays in getting a criminal case to a trial, if those delays are the result of tactics or omissions by public defender lawyers. Just because a court-appointed lawyer is from a public defender’s office, the Court said, does not make those attorneys government actors, as such, for whom the state is responsible for their tactical choices. Assigned counsel’s blame for delays are to be attributed to the defense, not the state — unless there is a complete breakdown in the public defender system, the Court decided in Vermont v. Brillon (08-88). Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the Court.


Note the words ' a complete breakdown in the public defender system.' Isn't that almost what we have been hearing is on the verge of happening in Dade, Broward, and around the country?

The Credit Card Consumer Factor


** Over four partial dissenting votes, the Court ruled that a firm seeking to compel arbitration of a dispute may take the case to a federal District Court only if the underlying controversy could have been litigated in federal court. A federal court has no jurisdiction, Justice Ginsburg wrote for the Court, to order arbitration of “a slice of a controversy when the controversy as a whole” would be beyond its reach. The ruling came in a dispute over a claimed failure of a consumer to pay a credit card balance (Vaden v. Discover Bank, 07-773).


Who has a credit card anymore? It's now a debt card with no credit.

The Traffic Court Subpoena Factor

** Ruling unanimously, the Court decided that the $40 per day fee for witnesses in regular federal court proceedings also applies when witnesses are summoned to appear in a case under the Court’s Original jurisdiction. The ruling, written by Justice Alito, rejected a challenge by the state of Kansas to a special master’s fee decision in a long-running dispute with Colorado over water rights in the Arkansas River. (The case is Kansas v. Colorado, 105 Original.)


How crazy is it that we subpoena witnesses to court and give them $6.50 for being there when the county charges $8.00 for parking and you have to wait an hour to get in the damn building?

Lilly Ledbetter and You

Okay with a name like that, you can understand why President Barack Obama enacted the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act as the first legislative act of his presidency. It is a righteous and laudatory beginning.

The law applies to discriminatory pay complaints and remedies under several current laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), and portions of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Providing for retroactive coverage effective May 28, 2007, the law overturns the frightening Supreme Court decision Ledbetter v. Good Year Tire & Rubber Co., extending filing deadlines for pay-bias complaints and clarifying the definition of a discriminatory employment practice. This also impacts the handling of closed and pending complaints and suits filed after the effective date. In addition,

Title VII maintains that employers must avoid any actions that may be viewed as retaliatory against employees involved in any portion of a wage discrimination complaint investigation.

"In practical terms," said Catherine Moreton Gray, J.D., managing editor, Human Resources at Business & Legal Reports, Inc. (BLR®), "the law eliminates the time limit within which an employee must file a complaint of pay discrimination as long as he or she continues on an employer's payroll. In other words, if a female employee had a supervisor 10 years ago that made pay decisions based on gender, causing her to be paid less than her male counterparts, and that pay inequity was not corrected in subsequent pay increases, each paycheck will start a new statute of limitations. This means the employee may file a charge of discrimination many years later when she learns of the discrepancy in pay."

To help employers understand the Fair Pay Act and its impact, BLR has made the following purchasable resources for employers or employees: available for purchase:
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act: Take Action Now www.blr.com/product.cfm/product/30614060

Any discrimination is wrongful discrimination and any legal redress is a rightful assertion of legitimate grievances, no matter when it comes. Ask Rosa Parks.

The encouraging initiative by the President evokes a further sense of confidence that his future will be marked by other executive orders and Presidential decrees that put an end to legal wrongs committed by governmental hubris. Don’t ask me to start telling you which I think should come next. Because right now, I don’t ask, don’t tell.