©2023 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Developments in Equal Pay Litigation | 63 to plaintiff, the court held that those alleged facts “sufficiently alleged that Defendant [manager] exerted supervisory authority over her.”523 Similarly, in Gunaldo v. Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University,524 the court held that there were sufficient allegations to establish that the Director of HR of a university could be held liable as an employer. According to the court, the complaint “does plausibly allege that [Director of HR] had some control over [plaintiff’s] salary raise, satisfying the third prong, and that [Director of HR] maintained [plaintiff’s] employment records, satisfying the fourth prong.”525 The court also was satisfied that the complaint alleged that plaintiff had been told that HR was responsible for employee raises and held that it could “reasonably infer that [Director of HR] had at least some control over [plaintiff’s] compensation and played a role in raising [plaintiff’s] salary by two percent.”526 Many cases have demonstrated that individual liability is much easier to allege as a possibility in a complaint, than it is to prove once the facts are known. For example, in a later case against the same university, Muslow v. Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College,527 the district court for the Eastern District of Louisiana originally allowed a complaint to proceed against some members of the university’s administration.528 The full-time General Counsel and a parttime staff attorney working for a university’s health sciences center sued the university and a handful of individual defendants, alleging they were paid less than various comparators who held other high-level positions. After discovery, the individual defendants each filed motions for summary judgment, arguing that they cannot be considered plaintiffs’ employer under the economic realities test. The court agreed, holding that plaintiff had failed to establish that either the Chancellor or the Vice Chancellor of administration and finance were plaintiffs’ employers. Although the Chancellor had the power to fire plaintiffs, there was no evidence to suggest that he could also hire them.529 Nor could plaintiffs establish that he supervised or controlled plaintiffs’ work schedules or conditions of employment, determined their salaries, or maintained their employment records.530 In particular, the court drew a distinction between the ability to recommend raises versus the authority to determine the rate and method of payment: “the fact that Plaintiffs recognize that [Chancellor] could only recommend raises shows that [Chancellor] did not have the authority to determine the rate of pay or method of payment,” and refused to credit plaintiffs’ argument that the ability to access university records was equivalent to maintaining those records: “Plaintiffs argue that [Chancellor] satisfies this prong because ‘[the university] as an institution maintained all employees’ HR records which [Chancellor] had access to at any point in his role as Chancellor. Plaintiffs’ logic is breathtaking: under this argument, every person who has access to the [university] system would satisfy this prong.’”531 But even at the motion to dismiss stage, many courts will not hesitate to dismiss allegations of individual liability that are conclusory or devoid of critical details. For example, in Caples v. Thiel,532 the court 523 Id. at *4. See also Davis v. Dawgs of St. John, Inc., No. 3:20-cv-0112, 2022 WL 17735829, at *23 (D.V.I. Dec. 16, 2022) (refusing to grant motion to dismiss filed by restaurant owners sued in their individual capacity under the EPA, finding that plaintiff had adequately alleged that they “jointly own, operate and/or manage the business known as [restaurant], and that Individual Defendants exercised control over significant aspects of the company's day-to-day functions, including compensation of employees”). 524 Gunaldo v. Bd. of Supervisors of La. State Univ., No. 20-cv-154, 2020 WL 4584186 (E.D. La. Aug. 10, 2020). 525 Id. at *14. 526 Id. 527 Muslow v. Bd. of Supervisors of La. State Univ. and Agricultural and Mech. Coll., No. 19-cv-11793, 2022 WL 1642137 (E.D. La. May 24, 2022). 528 See Muslow v. Bd. of Supervisors of La. State Univ., No. 19-cv-11793, 2020 WL 6483134, at *11 (E.D. La. Nov. 4, 2020) (finding that plaintiff sufficiently alleged that Vice President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel of university was “employer” of attorneys in its legal department because complaint alleged that he “had power over Plaintiffs’ contracts, that he organized legal work at [university], and that he reviewed employee salaries and status. Assuming the veracity of these statements, as is appropriate at this stage, this is enough to allege that Skinner was an employer under the FLSA to survive a motion to dismiss, even if the facts established at a later stage of the litigation tell a different tale”). 529 Muslow, 2022 WL 1642137, at *32-33. 530 Id. at *33-34. 531 Id. at *34 (internal citations and quotations omitted). 532 Caples v. Thiel, No. 17-cv-1797-pp, 2019 WL 1116948 (E.D. Wisc. Mar. 11, 2019).
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