Developments in Equal Pay Litigation

© 2021 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Developments in Equal Pay Litigation | 51 branches did not defeat the EEOC’s case because “none of th[ose] differences translated into job duties that differed significantly from one another. ” 423 The Court also rejected the employer’s affirmative defense, holding that the evidence simply did not support the employer’s claim that the comparator was hired at a higher salary because he was able to negotiate a higher salary on the strength of his superior qualifications. According to the Court, there was no evidence that the comparator had ever negotiated his salary. 424 The MAPS salary system also did not support the employer’s defense because, although that system permitted a salary adjustment, it does not alone independently justify paying a male employee a higher wage for performing the same work . 425 The employer’s own HR guidance actually cautioned city agencies to be careful when setting starting salaries to the MAPS midpoint in order to avoid “internal equity issues.” 426 Yet the employer had not been able to show that the employer had ever compared salaries to avoid those equity issues, and even failed to do so even after one of the charging party’s had complained about the disparity. 427 The employer’s failure to act on that complaint also led the Court to reject the employer’s claim that it had acted in good faith, meaning that the Court awarded the charging parties liquidated damages on top of their actual damages. 428 The Court concluded that “implementation of a public pay system alone cannot justify pay disparity in the absence of any other justification,” and that “mere reliance on MAPS in combination with the record evidence, does not establish that [comparator] was hired based on a factor other than sex. ” 429 423 Id. (emphasis in original). 424 Id. at *10. 425 Id. 426 Id. 427 Id. 428 Id. 429 Id. at *11.