Wiler v. Kent State Univ.

637 F.Supp.3d 480

Kathleen WILER, Plaintiff, v. KENT STATE UNIVERSITY, Defendant.

Case No. 5:20-cv-00490

United States District Court, N.D. Ohio, Eastern Division

Signed October 28, 2022

Caryn M. Groedel, Law Office of Caryn Groedel, Cleveland, OH, Danya M. Keller, Pro Hac Vice, Thomas A. Newkirk, Newkirk Zwagerman, Des Moines, IA, Karen C. Lefton, Lefton Group, Akron, OH, for Plaintiff.

Daniel J. Rudary, Brennan, Manna & Diamond, Akron, OH, for Defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

J. Philip Calabrese, United States District Judge

This case arises from Plaintiff Kathleen Wiler's employment as the head coach of Defendant Kent State University's women's field hockey team. She alleges that Kent State violated the Equal Pay Act and Title VII by paying her less than her male counterparts. Defendant moves for summary judgment on both claims and regarding some of Plaintiff's requested relief. (ECF No. 53.) For the following reasons, the Court GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART Defendant's motion.

STATEMENT OF FACTS

At this stage of the proceedings, the record establishes the following facts, which the Court construes in the light most favorable to Plaintiff as the non-movant.

A. Coach Kathleen Wiler

Kathleen Wiler coached Kent State University's Division I women's field hockey team from March 2006 to February 2019. (ECF No. 56, PageID #1926.) As head coach, she had several responsibilities. Among other things, Coach Wiler supervised two assistant coaches, oversaw a roster of around twenty-five to twenty-six players, and managed the team's budget—which often exceeded $800,000. (Id., PageID #1928-30.) She did all this while leading her team through a twenty-game athletic season lasting nearly three months. (Id., PageID #1930; ECF No. 52, PageID #1133.) During that competitive season, her team competed in the Mid-American Conference, also known as the MAC, against seven other schools. (ECF No. 52, PageID #1141.) During her time at the head of the program, Kent State dominated the MAC, winning eight regular season titles, five conference tournament titles, and making five NCAA post-season appearances. (ECF No. 56, PageID #1926; see also ECF No. 35-1, ¶ 17, PageID #367.)

B. Coach Wiler's 2016 Contract

In June 2016, Coach Wiler signed a three-year contract with Kent State. (ECF No. 52-7, PageID #1175.) That contract provided three main components of compensation.

First, she received a base salary of $76,500.00. (Id., PageID #1177.) That salary reflected a raise of over $5,000 from her previous year's base salary of $70,709.89. (ECF No. 52-5, PageID #1171.) In subsequent years, her raise increased. Coach Wiler's 2018 salary was $79,590.96, and her 2019 salary was $81,182.42. (ECF No. 52-9, PageID #1187; ECF No. 52-10, PageID #1188.) These two amounts placed her salary above the average MAC field hockey coach, who received $76,937.00 and $78,376.00 during those years. (ECF No. 52, PageID #1118-19.)

Second, her contract specified twelve performance bonuses. (ECF No. 52-7, PageID #1177.) For example, she could earn a $3,000 bonus if her team was the MAC Overall Regular Season Champion or if it was the MAC Tournament Champion. (Id.) Her team's performance objectively determined whether Coach Wiler received these bonuses. (ECF No. 50, PageID #779-81.)

Finally, Coach Wiler—like all of Kent State's head coaches—could receive supplemental income by hosting sports camps. (ECF No. 52-7, PageID #1179; ECF No. 50, PageID #888-90.) The amount a coach earned from these camps depended on several factors, including how many camps she decided to hold, how many students attended the camp, and the University's overhead. (ECF No. 50, PageID #888-95.) Further, coaches could even allocate some of their camp income to their assistant coaches, which Coach Wiler did. (Id., PageID #890.)

C. Other Coaches' Contracts

Three other head coaches—Roberto Marinaro (women's soccer), Eric Oakley (softball), and Jim Andrassy (wrestling)—also signed contracts with Kent State in the summer of 2016. None of these programs generated net revenue (ECF No. 56, PageID #1928), and each fell outside Kent State's priority list (see ECF No. 54, PageID #1885-86). Indeed, the only sports that Kent State prioritized from 2015 to 2019 were football, men's basketball, women's basketball, volleyball, men's golf, women's golf, and baseball. (Id.) As coaches of non-priority sports, each of these other head coaches, like Coach Wiler, had similar essential duties, expectations, and relative importance in Kent State's athletic program. (Id., PageID #1885.)

Initially, Plaintiff identified three additional coaches as potential comparators: the women's volleyball coach, the former women's golf coach, and the women's gymnastics coach. (ECF No. 51, PageID #1106.) On summary judgment, however, Plaintiff focused her argument only on similarities to Coach Marinaro, Coach Oakley, and Coach Andrassy. (ECF No. 57, PageID #2380.) Therefore, the Court limits the factual discussion and legal analysis to these coaches.

C.1. Coach Roberto Marinaro (Women's Soccer)

Marinaro signed his contract first in 2016. Under his contract, Marinaro received a base salary of $76,200.00. (ECF No. 50-38; PageID #1042.) This figure represented a raise from his 2015 salary of $73,728.68. (ECF No. 52-58, PageID #1792.) By 2018, his salary increased to $79,278.48 (ECF No. 52-63, PageID #1823), and by 2019 it was $80,864.05. (ECF No. 52-65, PageID #1832.)

Coach Marinaro's contract also included thirteen performance bonuses. (ECF No. 50-38, PageID #1042.) Nine were the same as Coach Wiler's. (Compare ECF No. 52-7, PageID #1177, with ECF No. 52-60, PageID #1803.) Two paid a higher bonus (MAC East Champion and MAC Final Four Tournament), and two lower (MAC Overall Regular Season Champion and MAC Tournament Champion). (Id.)

C.2. Coach Eric Oakley (Softball)

Next, Eric Oakley signed his contract in June 2016. (ECF No. 50-33, PageID #1026.) Like coaches Wiler and Marinaro, he too negotiated a base salary and performance bonuses. (Id., PageID #1028.) Under his 2016 contract, Coach Oakley had a base salary of $72,000.00. (Id.) In 2018 and 2019, this amount increased to $73,440.00 and $74,908.80, respectively. (ECF No. 50-34, PageID #1037; ECF No. 50-35, PageID #1038.) Moreover, he had the opportunity to receive as many as twelve performance bonuses. (ECF No. 50-33, PageID #1028.) Nine were the same as Coach Wiler's. (Compare ECF No. 52-7, PageID #1177, with ECF No. 52-51, PageID #1749.) Only one was higher: the bonus for winning the MAC East. (ECF No. 50-33, PageID #1028.)

C.3. Coach Jim Andrassy (Wrestling)

The last coach to sign a 2016 contract was Jim Andrassy. (See ECF No. 50-21, PageID #994.) He had served as the wrestling team's assistant or head coach since 1994. (ECF No. 52, PageID #1131.) In 2016 he would be the head wrestling coach. (ECF No. 50-21, PageID #994.)

The position came with several duties relevant here. First, he had to oversee two assistant coaches and a team of approximately thirty-one to thirty-three athletes. (ECF No. 56, PageID #1928-29.) His team had a five-and-a-half-month competitive season with roughly twenty-five matches. (ECF No. 52, PageID #1133; ECF No. 56, PageID #1930.) Second, he had budgeting duties. In 2018, he managed a budget of $641,859.74. (Id.)

Coach Andrassy's 2016 contract provided him with a base salary of $81,100.00. (ECF No. 50-21, PageID #996.) That number climbed to $82,722.00 and $83,936.83 in 2018 and 2019, respectively. (ECF No. 52-39, PageID #1695; ECF No. 52-41, PageID #1702.) Meanwhile, the average base salary of a MAC wrestling coach was $82,224.00 in 2018 and $88,125.00 in 2019. (ECF No. 52, PageID #1132-33.) Additionally, his contract provided sixteen performance bonuses. (ECF No. 50-21, PageID #996.) Several, including MAC Coach of the Year and Highest Team GPA in the MAC, were higher than Coach Wiler's. (Compare id., with ECF No. 52-7, PageID #1177.)

D. Kent State's Salary Considerations

Although these contracts have varying terms, Defendant maintains that Kent State's athletic director, Joel Nielsen, set the coaches' base salaries using two common denominators. The first is market data. According to Defendant, Nielsen ascertained a coach's market rate using Win AD—a subscription database that details the salaries of thousands of coaches at NCAA Division I and Division II schools. (ECF No. 52, PageID #1116-17.) Armed with this data, Nielson determined the average salary for each sport and adjusted his offers to put Kent State's head coaches in the top half, if not the top three or four, for the particular sport of each. (Id., PageID #1114-17.) Second is seniority. Nielsen also considered coaches' tenure with Kent State. (Id., PageID #1115; ECF No. 54, PageID #1887.)

E. Coach Wiler's Request to Renegotiate

In early 2016, Coach Wiler attempted to renegotiate her contract, which was set to expire in June 2016. (ECF No. 50, PageID #764-65.) At that point in time, the field hockey team had won its third consecutive regular-season MAC championship, won the MAC tournament for the third time in a row, and appeared in the NCAA tournament. (ECF No. 56, PageID #1926.) Also at that time, Coach Wiler was the only female coach at Kent State and had the lowest base salary. (Id.) During negotiations, she raised concerns about these issues. (Id., PageID #1926-27.)

Coach Wiler submitted a written proposal to increase her base salary to $80,000 per year. (Id., PageID #1927; ECF No. 50, PageID #817-18.) Nielson told Coach Wiler that he wanted to make sure she remained among the top three highest paid field hockey coaches in the MAC. (ECF No. 50, PageID #763.) Plaintiff claims that, after she raised the issue of equal pay with Nielsen, he broke off negotiations (Id., PageID #807), leaving Coach Wiler with a take-it-or leave it contract extension (ECF No. 56, PageID #1927). Ultimately, Coach Wiler took the deal and signed the 2016 contract described above, which expired on February 28, 2019. (ECF No....