Blog Topic
Legal Developments
I didn't think this was possible
Posted by: Spencer Pahlke
May 27, 2008
Amazingly, after earlier upholding a draconian statute of limitations for discrimination suits, the Supreme Court of Chief Justice John Roberts has decided in favor of aggrieved workers--twice in one day! I bumped into the news in the New York Times, though the AP originally reported it.
The two cases, entitled Gomez-Perez v. Potter and CBOCS West, Inc., v. Humphries, both dealt with employees who had been fired after they complained of discrimination. The former dealt with the matter in the context of federal employment (the Postal Service in Puerto Rico) and the latter in private employment (an associate manager was fired from a Cracker Barrel restaurant). In both cases, the Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 barred retaliation against employees who voiced their concerns regarding discrimination.
Interestingly, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 does not expressly provide that retaliation is disallowed. This means that some of the Court's conservative judges (Alito, Roberts and Kennedy in Humphries and Alito and Kennedy in Gomez-Perez) had to look at least marginally beyond the bare written words of the statute.
Because language is inherently imprecise (take my writing for example!), it seems absolutely necessary to me that one look to the context and the underlying meaning of a statute's words when interpreting that statute. Most of the time, the Court disagrees--so this decision pleases me greatly.
