Lilly Ledbetter, an equal pay advocate whose lawsuit against her employer inspired the Fair Pay Act of 2009, died Saturday in Alabama at age 86.
Ledbetter died of respiratory failure, according to a statement from her family provided to the Alabama news organization Al.com.
“Lilly Ledbetter never set out to be a trailblazer or a household name. She just wanted to be paid the same as a man for her hard work,” wrote Barack Obama, who in 2009 signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
Ledbetter worked at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber plant in Alabama and learned that she earned less than her male colleagues who did the same job.
Ledbetter filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer in 1998 after discovering that her annual salary was $6,500 less than the lowest-paid male supervisor. The case reached the US supreme court, which ruled in 2007 that she filed her lawsuit too late. That meant she never received the $3.8m in backpay and damages slated for her as part of a lower court ruling.
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