As the victim of repeated sexual harassment by a co-worker throughout her two-year employment at a company in Texas, Barbara Landgraf sought to apply a sweeping new civil rights law in her case against her employer.
The problem, however, was that Congress passed the new civil rights law after she filed her suit. Landgraf argued that since her case was pending when the law took effect, she should be subject to the law’s added protection.
Landgraf took her case to the Supreme Court, where she received the support of a number of organizations, including some Jewish organizations.
Those Jewish groups voiced disappointment when the Supreme Court ruled last week that the Civil Rights Act of 1991 does not apply retroactively to cases such as Landgraf’s that were pending at the time the law was enacted.
“Justice should have called for (people like Landgraf) to receive the benefit of retroactivity, and now they will not,” said Sam Rabinove, legal director of the American Jewish Committee.
The AJCommittee, along with the Anti-Defamation League, had filed an amicus brief in support of Landgraf in her case, Landgraf vs. USI Film Products. That case and another, Rivers vs. Roadway Express, were decided April 26 by the Supreme Court.
The 1991 law benefits the victims of job discrimination by allowing them to have their cases heard by a jury and to collect increased money damages.
Juries are generally regarded as being kinder to the claims of employees than judges.
Employees such as Landgraf will also lose out on increased damages — as much as $300,000 — that the act allows to compensate them for their injury and punish their employer for permitting the offending conduct.
RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION COVERED
The decision means that scores of people claiming to be victims of harassment and other intentional discrimination, whose cases were filed but not yet resolved when the law took effect, cannot avail themselves of the law’s benefits.
Victims of intentional job discrimination based on religion are now covered by the act, which also covers intentional employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex and disability.
“There may well be cases of religious discrimination where the victims of such discrimination could have benefitted from the retroactivity of the law,” said Richard Foltin, AJCommittee’s legislative director and counsel in Washington.
Rabinove said because the law includes the discrimination that make up most cases, the justice’s decision could have far-reaching effects.
AJCommittee and ADL estimate that thousands of employees who had cases pending when the new law was passed will be affected by the decision.
“This could be a make-or-break (decision) for many plaintiffs” in discrimination cases, Rabinove said.
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