Justice Story best articulated the most common rationale for the statute of limitations: "It is a wise and beneficial law, not designed merely to raise a presumption of payment of a just debt, from lapse of time, but to afford security against stale demands, after the true state of the transaction may have been forgotten, or be incapable of explanation, by reason of the death or removal of witnesses."[9]
Indeed, Ledbetter itself illustrates this function. Different treatment, such as pay disparities, may be easy to prove even after much time has lapsed, because the kinds of facts at issue are often documented and, indeed, are rarely in dispute. More contentious, however, is the defendant's discriminatory intent, which Title VII requires in addition to proof of disparate treatment. The evidence proving intent can be subtle--for example, "whether a long-past performance evaluation … was so far off the mark that a sufficient inference of discriminatory intent can be drawn."[10] With the passage of time, witnesses' memories may fade, stripping their accounts of the details necessary to resolve the claim. Evidence may be lost or discarded. Indeed, witnesses may disappear or perish--the supervisor whom Ledbetter accused of misconduct had died by the time of trial. Sorting out the subtleties of human relationships a decade or more in the past may be an impossible task for parties and the courts, one at which the defendant, who did not instigate the suit, will be at a particular disadvantage. This seems to have been the case in Ledbetter.
Statutes of limitations, in contrast, require a plaintiff to bring his or her claim earlier, when evidence is still fresh and the defendant has a fair chance of mustering it to mount a defense. In this way, statutes of limitations also serve to prevent fraudulent claims whose veracity cannot be checked due to passage of time.
Second, statutes of limitations also help to effectuate the purposes of law. They encourage plaintiffs to diligently prosecute their claims, thereby achieving the law's remedial purpose. This is particularly the case for statutes such as those forbidding discrimination in employment practices, where Congress has created causes of action to supplement government enforcement actions. Litigation under such statutes is, in part, a public good, because the plaintiff in a meritorious suit secures justice not just for himself but for similarly situated victims, as well as the public at large, which has expressed its values through the law. Anti-discrimination law is the archetypical example of an area where private suits can promote far broader good. Other victims and the public are best served when workers who believe they have been subject to discrimination have the incentive to investigate the possible unlawful conduct, document it, and then challenge it in a timely fashion.[11] This was an explicit goal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, whose drafters reasoned that the short limitations period and mandatory EEOC administrative process would lead most discrimination complaints to be resolved quickly, through cooperation and voluntary compliance.[12]
Third, time limits on filing lawsuits prevent strategic behavior by plaintiffs. In some cases, plaintiffs may wait for evidence favorable to the defense to disappear or be discarded, for memories to fade and witnesses to move on, before bringing claims. Particularly under laws that allow damages continuing violations or punitive damages, plaintiffs may face the incentive to keep quiet about violations as the potential pool of damages grows. Concerns that plaintiffs will game the system in this way are so prevalent that an entire doctrine of judge-created law, known as "laches," exists to combat certain of these abuses.[13] Laches, however, is applied inconsistently, and courts often decline its exercise in enforcing statutory rights. A limitations period puts a limit on the extent to which plaintiffs can game the law by delaying suit.
Fourth, time-limiting the right to sue furthers efficiency. Valuable claims are likely to be investigated and prosecuted promptly, while most of dubious merit or value are "allowed to remain neglected."[14] Thus, "the lapse of years without any attempt to enforce a demand, creates, therefore, a presumption against its original validity, or that it has ceased to subsist."[15] Statutes of limitations, then, are one way that our justice system focuses its limited resources on the most valuable cases, maximizing its contribution to the public good.
Finally, there is an intrinsic value to repose. It promotes certainty and stability. Putting a deadline on claims protects a business's or individual's settled expectations, such as accounting statements or income. At some point, surprises from the past, in the form of lawsuits, cease to be possible. As with adverse possession of land, the law recognizes that, though a wrong may have been done, over time certainty of rights gains value.
For these important reasons, statutes of limitation are ubiquitous in the law and have been since ancient Roman times.[16] Limitations periods necessarily close the courthouse doors to some potentially worthwhile claims--an outcome so harsh that it would be "pure evil," observed Oliver Wendell Holmes, if it were not so essential to the operation of law.[17] That a single good claim has been barred, then, proves not that the deadline for suit is unfair or unwise but only that justice cannot provide a remedy in every case.
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In these ways, the Ledbetter Act would allow cases asserting extremely tenuous links between alleged discrimination and differences in pay, which may result from any number of non-discriminatory factors, such as experience.[23] Employers would be forced to defend cases where plaintiffs present evidence of a present wage gap, allegations of long-ago discrimination, and a story connecting the two. As wage differences between employees performing similar functions are rampant--consider how many factors may be relevant to making a wage determination--a flood of cases alleging past discrimination resulting in present disparity would likely follow passage. In addition to investigatory and legal expenses, employers will face the risk of punitive damages and the difficulty of rebutting assertions of discriminatory acts from years or decades ago.
