The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided Ledbetter v. Goodyear (May 29, 2007), and held that the deadline for filing pay discrimination claims under Title VII is measured from the date of the allegedly discriminatory pay decision. In this particular case, negative performance evaluations occurred many years earlier that allegedly limited the employee's pay raises.

The employee relied on the fact that her paycheck continued to be lower because of those earlier evaluations. The Court's opinion rejected the argument that each new paycheck resets the time for challenging an employee's prior pay history.

The Court found that because a pay-setting decision is a "discrete act," it follows that the period for filing an EEOC charge begins when the act occurs. The Court concluded that because a pay-setting decision is a discrete act that occurs at a particular point in time, the employee's arguments that the period should be reset each time she received a paycheck should be rejected.