By: Matthew J. Gagnon
Seyfarth Synopsis: In its seminal decision, Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the Supreme Court held that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is tantamount to discrimination on the basis of sex. Employers are just beginning to grasp the wide-ranging impact that decision will have on the American workplace. The reasoning of this decision: that to treat an employee differently because of the sex of the person they are married to, for example, is necessarily the same as treating that person differently because of their sex, is turning out to have important implications for other areas of the law, including equal pay claims. Just one more thing for employers to beware of as they attempt to navigate the modern, culturally-charged workplace.
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This is the second in a series of posts examining the new and developing trends in equal pay litigation identified in Seyfarth’s yearly publication, Developments in Equal Pay Litigation, 2024 Update.
In order to state a viable equal pay claim, a plaintiff need not show they were paid less in strictly monetary terms. Any discrepancy with respect to compensation or benefits can support such a claim. For example, one recent case turned on the fact that one senior executive was denied the use of a company car while others were not. The court in that case held that those facts were sufficient to state a prima facie equal pay violation, even though the complaining executive earned the same base salary as her comparators. See Pate v. Med. Diagnostic Labs. LLC, No. 7:19-cv-126-FL, 2021 WL 965906 (E.D.N.C. Mar. 15, 2021).
But when a disparity in benefits forms the basis of a gender discrimination claim, it is critical that a plaintiff establish their right to those benefits. This issue potentially puts equal pay litigation on a collision course with some of those most culturally contentious issues of the day. In Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, 590 U.S. 644 (2020) the Supreme Court held that Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity because those forms of discrimination are tantamount to discrimination on the basis of sex. That decision has rendered many workplace issues newly relevant, including the question of who qualifies for spousal benefits. That, in turn, threatens to give rise to whole new categories of equal pay violations.
This was the issue in one recent case, Doe v. Catholic Relief Services, 618 F. Supp. 3d 244 (D. Md. 2022). In that case, the plaintiff worked for a religiously aligned organization. He alleged he was underpaid compared to his peers because certain health benefits were denied to his spouse, another man, even though they were provided to the opposite-sex spouses of others in the same position. He claimed this was a violation of Title VII and the EPA...
