Opinion ID: 77051
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Morgan Decision.

Text: 38 The Supreme Court substantially clarified the operation of Title VII's timely-filing requirement in National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002), so we begin our analysis there. In Morgan, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether, and under what circumstances, a Title VII plaintiff may file suit on events that fall outside [the timely-filing] period. Id. at 105, 122 S.Ct. at 2068. On that question, the Court reached two different answers, one for each of the two types of claims at issue in the case: (1) disparate treatment and retaliation claims challenging discrete discriminatory or retaliatory acts, and (2) a claim alleging a hostile work environment. See id. 39 The Court held that the timely-filing requirement erects an absolute bar on recovery for discrete discriminatory or retaliatory acts occurring outside the limitations period. In doing so, it rejected the Ninth Circuit's serial violations doctrine, eschewing the notion that so long as one act falls within the charge filing period, [time-barred] discriminatory and retaliatory acts that are plausibly or sufficiently related to that act may also be considered for purposes of liability. Id. at 114, 122 S.Ct. at 2072-73. The Court reasoned that discrete acts of discrimination such as termination, failure to promote, denial of transfer, or refusal to hire are easy to identify, and each constitutes a separate actionable `unlawful employment practice.' Id. at 114, 122 S.Ct. at 2073. Because each is an identifiable violation of Title VII, [e]ach discrete discriminatory act starts a new clock for filing charges alleging that act. Id. at 113, 122 S.Ct. at 2072. In such cases, there is no issue about when, in the language of the statute, the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1). It occurred on the day that it happened. Morgan, 536 U.S. at 109, 122 S.Ct. at 2070. A party, therefore, must file a charge within either 180 or 300 days of the date of a discrete discriminatory or retaliatory act or lose the ability to recover for it, id. at 113, 122 S.Ct. at 2072, regardless of whether the time-barred acts are closely related to acts alleged in a timely-filed charge. Pre-limitations acts can be used, where relevant, as background evidence in support of [the] timely claim, Id. at 113, 122 S.Ct. at 2072, but they cannot themselves form the basis for liability. 40 The Court distinguished claims in which the plaintiff alleges that he or she was subjected to a hostile work environment. For those claims, the Court held, consideration of the entire scope of [the] claim, including behavior alleged outside the statutory time period, is permissible for the purposes of assessing liability, so long as an act contributing to that hostile environment takes place within the statutory time period. Id. at 105, 122 S.Ct. at 2068. The Court reasoned that 41 [h]ostile environment claims are different in kind from discrete acts. Their very nature involves repeated conduct. The unlawful employment practice therefore cannot be said to occur on any particular day. It occurs over a series of days or perhaps years and, in direct contrast to discrete acts, a single act of harassment may not be actionable on its own. Such claims are based on the cumulative effect of individual acts. 42 Id. at 115, 122 S.Ct. at 2073 (citations omitted). Given, the Court said, that the incidents constituting a hostile work environment are part of one unlawful employment practice, the employer may be liable for all acts that are part of this single claim. Id. at 118, 122 S.Ct. at 2075. 43 We think it clear that pay claims of the type Ledbetter asserts are governed by that part of the Morgan decision addressing claims alleging discrete acts of discrimination. It is fundamental that for a Title VII plaintiff to prevail on any type disparate treatment claim, he or she must point to some specific, conscious conduct that was tainted by the alleged improper consideration (be it race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1)). In a case in which the plaintiff complains of discriminatory pay, there are only two possible sources of such conduct: the decisions setting the plaintiff's salary level or pay rate, and the issuance of paychecks reflecting those decisions. Whether it is a pay-setting decision or the issuance of a confirming paycheck that is viewed as the operative act of discrimination, the act is, like termination, failure to promote, denial of transfer, or refusal to hire, Morgan, 536 U.S. at 114, 122 S.Ct. at 2073, discrete in time, easy to identify, and — if done with the requisite intent — independently actionable. If an employee is denied a raise, given a pay cut, or hired at a deflated pay grade because of a prohibited consideration, the statute is violated and the employee can file suit the moment the decision is made. The decision would be no less unlawful if the employee were to quit the next day in exasperation and never receive a paycheck reflecting her unlawful pay rate; proving damages might be problematic, but establishing liability would not. Similarly, if the act complained of is the issuance of a discrete discriminatory paycheck (or paychecks), then the issuance of the challenged paycheck completes the alleged unlawful employment practice for purposes of the timely-filing requirement. Pay claims do not, therefore, have those characteristics that led the Court to devise a separate rule governing the timing of hostile work environment claims: The unlawful employment practice can be said to occur on a particular day (though it may be repeated on multiple days), and a single discriminatory act is actionable on its own. The alleged discriminatory behaviors need not accumulate to some critical mass to become actionable. 15 44 Under Morgan, therefore, Ledbetter can state a timely cause of action for disparate pay only to the extent that the discrete acts of discrimination of which she complains occurred within the limitations period created by her EEOC questionnaire. Any acts of discrimination affecting her salary occurring before then are time-barred.