Florida et al. v. Long et al. (487 U.S. 223)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 22, 1988 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 487 U.S. 223 · 108 S. Ct. 2354
- Decided
- June 22, 1988
- Term
- October Term 1987
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court. The questions presented for decision here are the date upon which pension funds covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were required to offer benefit structures that did not discriminate on the basis of sex and whether persons who retired before that date are entitled to adjusted benefits to eliminate any sex discrimination for all future benefit payments. We revisit our decisions in Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart, 435 U. S. 702 (1978), and Arizona Governing Committee for Tax Deferred Annuity and Deferred Compensation Plans v. Norris, 463 U. S. 1073 (1983). The issues before us turn on whether Manhaifs invalidation of discriminatory contributions necessarily apprised employers that plans which were nondiseriminatory as to contributions must in every case be nondiseriminatory as to benefits. We conclude that Manhart neither resolved the issue nor gave employers notice that benefits necessarily were embraced by the decision. The point was not resolved in a definitive way until our decision in Norris. We hold further that employees who retired before the effective date of Norris are not entitled to a readjusted benefits payment structure. I Since 1970, the State of Florida has operated the Florida Retirement System (Florida System) for state employees and employees of over 1,100 participating…
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