Lilly Ledbetter dies at 86, leaving her equal pay win as a legacy

If you read through old Supreme Court decisions, you'll be amazed at how little they tell you about the individual Americans at the heart of the cases.

To give one example, the majority opinion in the landmark 1963 decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, which established the right to a court-appointed attorney for indigent offenders, does not even bother to mention Clarence Earl Gideon's full name to indicate which only appears in a direct quotation, quoted in a footnote.

But the people in these cases have lives that began before their moment in Supreme Court jurisprudence and continue afterward. And in some cases, they got the last laugh.

Lilly Ledbetter, who died over the weekend at age 86, was one of those Americans. Her moment in legal history came in 2007, when the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed her wage discrimination case, drastically restricting equal pay laws in the process. But Ledbetter pressed on, becoming a public advocate for fair pay and helping to pass legislation in Congress just two years later.

Obituaries for Ledbetter recall her fight for fair pay. But Ledbetter's life is also a good reminder that the fight for justice doesn't always end at the courthouse doors, especially given the current conservative majority's attempts to close those doors to so many Americans.

Like many advocates, Ledbetter did not set out to become a champion of justice; She took on this role when injustice happened to her.

Ledbetter is a native of Alabama and has a high school education. In 1979, he began working for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. as a line manager. The predominantly male workplace was not welcoming. She said her tires were slashed at some point and that she was subjected to sexual harassment and intimidation. Still, she was good at her job and stayed at it for 19 years. Then, as she neared retirement, she learned that things had turned out even worse than she had imagined.

An anonymous note left in Ledbetter's locker revealed that she was paid significantly less than male managers: $3,272 a month, compared to $4,286 to $5,236.

When Ledbetter filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, her employer retaliated by assigning her to a job that required heavy lifting, she later testified. She won a civil lawsuit, but an appeals court reduced damages from more than $3.5 million to just $360,000. Goodyear then appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled against Ledbetter and denied any damages claims.

The court's 5-4 decision was a classic piece of cramped logic. The court turned the law on its head and ruled that Ledbetter—and all similar defendants from that day forward—had to have filed their unequal pay complaint within 180 days of the discrimination beginning.

The court simply ignored the facts of Ledbetter's life. The fact that the discrimination took place over a period of 19 years? The employment contract that prohibited her from discussing pay rates with her colleagues? The sexist work environment that has prevented anyone from even acknowledging the unequal pay for so long? None of this was as important as a strict reading of the legal code.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who as a lawyer has acquired just such gender discrimination cases – and was the only woman on the court at the time – overturned the decision in court, but she also pointed the way forward.

Years later, Ledbetter remembered exactly the line Ginsburg wrote in her dissent: “She said, 'Congress, the ball is in your court.'”

Ledbetter took the ball and ran with it. She held press conferences, met with members of Congress and testified before the House and Senate. Democratic lawmakers, eager to highlight her bill to repair the harm caused by the court, named it after her, and it quickly became a top legislative priority for the party. Ledbetter even spoke at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

The justice Ledbetter was denied for so long came quickly. Barack Obama won the election and signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act as his first law just days after taking office.

Today, Ledbetter is known for that law—and not for the shameful Supreme Court decision that ruled against her. But her true legacy is the inspiration of countless Americans who have been denied justice in the country's courtrooms.

As she showed, the fight doesn't have to end there.