Excerpt: [T]his case presents a number of complicated and technical questions on some very abstract issues, and it would have been great to have seen the issues put in their most basic terms. The argument was very bogged down in the technicalities, though. Counsel for AT&T began by focusing on the staleness of the claims here, presumably (although not explicitly) arguing that the plaintiffs' cause of action arose either 1. at the time of adoption of the policy that required employees to take personal leave (no service credit for seniority) for pregnancy-related leave while allowing employees to take disability leave for other disabilities (service credit); or 2. at the time that the employees took the leave. If that were true, the 180 day filing limit would have passed over 30 years ago. That made AT&T's argument flow a little strangely: first, the plaintiffs should have sued in the 1970s when they knew that something illegal had happened; but this wasn't a violation of Title VII then anyway.  MORE >>