Developments In Equal Pay Litigation - 2022 Update

16 | Developments in Equal Pay Litigation © 2022 Seyfarth Shaw LLP substantially similar work; the Court should not have to disregard a gender-based discrepancy in salaries simply because the higher paid position has evolved or no longer exists.” 126 The different statutes of limitations for EPA and Title VII claims can be critical when plaintiffs attempt to compare themselves to past positions. In Boatright v. U.S. Bancorp , 127 a Managing Director of a financial services firm alleged, under the EPA and Title VII, that she had been paid less than a male comparator. The court held that she could not establish a prima facie case under the EPA because, during the entire relevant time period for that statute, her chosen comparator was her superior, having been promoted to chief of the group in which she was employed. 128 As her superior, it was clear that his job was not substantially equal to hers. Among other things, he “served as the leader and supervisory principal of the San Francisco office and supervised all employees of the [group]. He was in charge of monitoring the performance of all employees and evaluating them. Additionally, he was charged with developing and implementing the [group’s] revenue generation strategies.” 129 Title VII, however, has a longer statute of limitations. For some of the relevant period, plaintiff and her male comparator shared the same Managing Director job tile. This was enough under the minimal burden required of plaintiffs under Title VII to establish that he was a proper comparator. 130 However, the court held that plaintiff had failed to show facts giving rise to an inference of discriminatory animus, as required to establish a prima facie case under Title VII but not under the EPA, finding that the differences in pay and resources between her and her comparator were not sufficient to establish that animus. 131 Successors or replacements in the same position can also be useful comparators to establish the “equal work” requirement. 132 However, just as with predecessor comparators, the job must have remained the same since it was held by plaintiff. Courts are cognizant of the fact that the duties of a job can sometimes change simply because a different person holds the position. For example, in Flannery v. Riverside Research Institute , 133 an employee who had held several positions at a scientific research company alleged a history of wage discrimination based on, among other things, the fact that she was paid less as a Technical Researcher than the male employee who had taken that position after she was transferred to a different position. 134 She alleged that the fact that they had held the same position meant that they performed equal work. The court disagreed. Although they performed many of the same duties, the court found that the male employee could not be considered as performing equal work as plaintiff because he 126 Id. at 592. See also Powell v. New Horizons Learning Solutions Corp. , No. 17-cv-10588, 2018 WL 6571216, at *5 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 13, 2018) (“If a female employee is paid less that a male predecessor, the Sixth Circuit permits claims of unequal pay.”) (citing Conti v. Am. Axle , 326 Fed. App’x 900, 914 (6th Cir. 2009)). 127 Boatright v. U.S. Bancorp , No. 18-cv-7293, 2020 WL 7388661 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 16, 2020). 128 Id. at *12. 129 Id. 130 Among other things, the court noted that they shared the same title and internal grade within the employer’s hierarchy, occupied the same level on the company’s organization chart, and had the same job description when hired. Id. at *16. 131 Id. A prima facie case under Title VII also requires the plaintiff to show facts giving rise to an inference of discriminatory animus, an intent requirement that is not required by the EPA. Although plaintiff had pointed to several allegedly discriminatory remarks, including that Washington, D.C. had “bad ... neighborhoods” and was “unseemly,” that the former Chairman of Goldman Sachs “grew up in a really bad neighborhood,” and that “the Obamas are disgusting,” the court held that those statements were “race and gender neutral”: “[a]n employer or supervisor can comment that an urban area has bad neighborhoods or compliment a bank Chairman for having achieved success despite having come from a less privileged background without—by such comments—taking on the burden to justify (even through a burden of production) an adverse employment action for an employee.” Id. at *16-17. Moreover, “an employer or supervisor may make derogatory, but race and gender neutral, comments about a political figure including a President of the United States without giving rise to an inference of discrimination.” Id. at *17. 132 See, e.g., Spencer v. Austin , No. 19-cv-7404, 2021 WL 4448723, at *9-10 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 28, 2021) (holding that plaintiff sufficiently alleged that she and her comparator performed equal work because her comparator was her replacement in the same position, rejecting the employer’s arguments that the plaintiff and her replacement had different job titles and could not have worked in “similar working conditions” because their tenures did not overlap, noting that comparators are compared based on actual job duties and performance, rather than titles, and because “employees need not overlap to serve as useful comparators”); Mooberry v. Charleston S. Univ. , No. 2:20-cv-769, 2022 WL 123005, at *7 (D.S.C. Jan. 13, 2022) (finding that plaintiff established a prima facie case where she pointed to her successor as coach of the women’s volleyball team as her comparator and where, “[u]pon a review of the record and in a light most favorable to the non-moving party, the Court finds that Plaintiff was required to perform all the additional duties outlined in [comparator’s] contract”). 133 Flannery v. Riverside Research Inst. , No. 3:18-cv-412, 2021 WL 1192526 (S.D. Ohio Mar. 30, 2021). 134 Id. at *1.