Monday, May 10, 2021

Equal Pay

Here's a case from January 2021 in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.  Here's a map of the circuits.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Court_of_Appeals_and_District_Court_map.svg
This case is called Lindsley v TRT Holdings and is an appeal of a case from the Northern District of Texas.

Sarah Lindsley worked for Omni Hotels for 16 years, starting as a server and working her way up to Food and Beverage Director.  She sued Omni on several claims, including that she was paid less than the previous three male persons in that same position.  The company did not dispute that salary difference.  The trial court ruled against her on all of her claims.

On appeal, the appellate court agreed with the trial court on her other claims, but did rule that all she needed for her case to proceed on her claim of discrimination based on her sex was the bare fact of the difference in pay.  The company then has the burden to provide evidence that the difference in pay was due to something other than her sex.

Do you agree with the court's conclusion?  Why or why not?


4 comments:

  1. Gender imbalanced pay happened to me (although I didn't take legal action). No surprise I agree, lol.

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  2. I have to agree with the appellate court. The law has rigid structure of what is what in a courthouse.

    That the lower court did not rule on the original count, it needed to be thrown out.

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