Zigler v. Edward D. Jones & Co.

676 F.Supp.3d 615

Blair ZIGLER, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. EDWARD D. JONES & CO., L.P. et al., Defendants.

No. 22 C 4706

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

Signed June 9, 2023

Alexander Thomas Ricke, Pro Hac Vice, George A. Hanson, Pro Hac Vice, Jordan A. Kane, Pro Hac Vice, Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP, Kansas City, MO, Maureen Ann Salas, Douglas M. Werman, Werman Salas P.C., Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff.

James F. Bennett, Dowd Bennett LLP, St. Louis, MO, Gregg M. Lemley, Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart, PC, St. Louis, MO, Michael Jonathan Kuhn, Dowd Bennett LLP, Clayton, MO, Philip Allen Cantwell, Dowd Bennett LLP, Saint Louis, MO, Patrick F. Hulla, Ogletree Deakins, Kansas City, MO, for Defendants.

Memorandum Opinion and Order

Elaine E. Bucklo, United States District Judge

The Amended Complaint in this case alleges that defendant Edward D. Jones & Co., a financial services firm, paid plaintiff Blair Zigler, a Financial Advisor (or "FA"), and similarly situated female employees less than it paid male employees for comparable work in violation of the Equal Pay Act ("EPA"), 29 U.S.C. § 206(d), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq., the Illinois Human Rights Act, 775 ILCS 5/101 et seq., and the Illinois Equal Pay Act ("IEPA"), 820 Ill. Comp. Stat. 112/1 et seq.¹ Zigler alleges that centralized, systemic, company-wide, discriminatory employment practices yielded the pay inequity she challenges here and that defendant has long been aware of these discriminatory practices. Indeed, the Amended Complaint asserts that after defendant was sued for systemic race discrimination in 2018,² it conducted an internal pay equity analysis and reported in its "Purpose, Inclusion, and Citizenship Report, 2020" that as many as two percent of its nearly 20,000 employees—including Zigler herself—had been paid less than their peers for comparable work in 2020. Both before and after learning the results of this analysis, Zigler allegedly complained to defendant's leadership about defendant's discriminatory compensation practices, but defendant took no meaningful action to remedy the pay gaps its pay equity analysis had uncovered.

Zigler began her employment with defendant in 2018 as an Illinois-based "Field FA," a customer-facing role with a commission-based compensation structure. In that role, Zigler allegedly confronted unwanted sexual advances from male colleagues, and she was not given the support that her male colleagues received to help them establish a book of business, such as a dedicated office and internal asset transfers.³ Instead, plaintiff was required to drum up business herself by knocking on strangers' doors in designated Illinois neighborhoods—an approach that she felt was unsafe. But defendant dismissed her safety concerns, telling her to "take a self-defense class" if she was fearful. Am. Compl. at ¶¶ 46, 52. In view of defendant's lack of support for her professional development and personal safety as a Field FA, plaintiff decided to apply for a position as a Home Based Associate ("HBA") FA, a remote position with defendant's home office.⁴ In this allegedly less prestigious position, which did not offer an opportunity to earn fees or commissions, plaintiff did not have her own clients but rather assisted the clients of other FAs when they were out of office.

According to the Amended Complaint, Zigler continued to suffer from sex-based discrimination in her HBA role as well. On one occasion, a male partner at one of defendant's local Illinois offices—the Regional Leader for Zigler's local area, and someone with whom Zigler had worked as a Field FA—requested a work-related meeting. Zigler met the partner at a local restaurant, and after discussing work-related matters, the partner allegedly cornered Zigler outside the restroom and told her that he wanted to have sex with her. Zigler refused.

Zigler was promoted to the position of Team Leader—another home-office position—in January of 2021 and began several weeks of training for the position. Although she had been told that she would be assigned a team to lead in February of 2021, after she told defendant that she would be taking parental leave starting in May of 2021, defendant decided not to assign her a team until she returned from leave in September of 2021. In the meantime, she was assigned tasks commensurate with the work of employees four grades below her title—indeed, the very employees she would supervise as a Team Leader.

When Zigler returned from parental leave, she received an email informing her that she had been identified as having received unequal pay relative to her peers. Although defendant raised Zigler's pay to align her salary with those of colleagues performing similar work, the raise was not retroactive, and thus did not compensate her for past discrimination. In addition, Zigler's pay increase was offset by defendant's decision to make her ineligible for future "position-in-range" raises, which she had previously been promised.

When Zigler was finally assigned a team to lead in November of 2021, she discovered that all of her team members were new employees—an unusual situation that not only made plaintiff's job harder and more labor-intensive than that of other Team Leaders, it also made it difficult or impossible for her to perform well according to the performance metrics by which her work was assessed.⁵ This caused Zigler's performance rating to fall from "Exceeding Expectations" to "Meeting Expectations," with a commensurate fall in her bonus potential and yearly merit increase.

In early 2022, Zigler resigned her position, citing inadequate pay as the reason for her departure. She claims that she was "continually paid less than, given fewer opportunities than, and given less support than her male colleagues performing the same job," and that her experience was similar to that of "other women FAs." Am. Compl. at ¶ 88-89. On June 14, 2022, Zigler filed a charge of discrimination with the Illinois Human Rights Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She received a Right to Sue notice on August 4, 2022.

With respect to her EPA claim, Zigler seeks to represent a collective defined as:

All current and former female FAs employed by Edward Jones' "home office" from three years prior to the filing of the original Complaint to the present. This collective definition excludes workers "in the field."

With respect to her Title VII, IHRA, and IEPA claims, Zigler seeks to represent classes defined as:

All current and former female "home office" FAs employed by Edward Jones [in Illinois] during the applicable limitations period. This collective definition excludes workers "in the field."⁶

Defendant moves to dismiss the complaint in its entirety on various grounds. For the reasons explained below, the motion is granted in part.

I.

Defendant leads with the argument that I lack specific personal jurisdiction over it because none of Zigler's claims arise out of defendant's conduct with Illinois.⁷ There is no merit to this argument. A court has specific jurisdiction "when the defendant purposefully directs its activities at the forum state and the alleged injury arises out of those activities." Mobile Anesthesiologists Chicago, LLC v. Anesthesia Assocs. of Houston Metroplex, P.A., 623 F.3d 440, 444 (7th Cir. 2010). All agree that defendant hired Zigler to work in Illinois, and that both before and after Zigler became an HBA, defendant understood that she would live and work in Illinois. Indeed, defendant allegedly paid for her to obtain the various Illinois licenses, certifications, and registrations it required of her as a condition of her employment. See Am. Compl. at ¶¶ 41-42. Additionally, defendant allegedly provided plaintiff with office equipment for her to use for the work she performed as an HBA in Illinois, and it paid for her Internet costs associated with that work. Id. at ¶ 55. Plaintiff was trained in Illinois to be an HBA, id. at ¶ 57, and when she was promoted to the position of Team Leader, she received training for that role in Illinois from an Illinois-based employee, id. at ¶ 66. At a minimum, defendant consented to an ongoing relationship with plaintiff, training her for jobs it knew she would perform to its benefit in Illinois and providing her with the material support she needed to do so. See Tekway, Inc. v. Agarwal, No. 19-CV-6867, 2020 WL 5946973, at *6 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 7, 2020) (asserting specific jurisdiction over employee who worked remotely for an Illinois-based company from her home in New Jersey); Williams v. Preeminent Protective Servs., Inc., 81 F. Supp. 3d 265, 271 (E.D.N.Y. 2015) (asserting personal jurisdiction over out-of-state defendant, who "hired her knowing that she would live and work in Brooklyn [New York]"). In addition, plaintiff was allegedly harassed at an Illinois restaurant by an Illinois-based partner with whom she had previously worked in Illinois. Id. at ¶¶ 60-61. That defendant did not, as its affiants state, "require [plaintiff's] presence in Illinois," or reap a business benefit tied specifically to plaintiff's Illinois location is not dispositive. I am satisfied that the requirements of specific personal jurisdiction are satisfied.

Defendant next argues that I lack personal jurisdiction with respect to the potential claims of out-of-state, opt-in members of the EPA collective. This issue is the subject of a "nationwide split at the district-court level," Parker v. IAS Logistics DFW, LLC, No. 20 C 5103, 2021 WL 4125106, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 9, 2021), and the three courts of appeals to have addressed the issue have likewise divided, compare Canaday v. Anthem Cos., 9 F.4th 392 (6th Cir. 2021), and Vallone v. CJS Solutions Group, 9 F.4th 861 (8th Cir. 2021) (both concluding that federal courts lack jurisdiction over claims of opt-in collective members with insufficient ties to the forum),...