20 | Developments in Equal Pay Litigation 2026 ©2026 Seyfarth Shaw LLP The court in Doe v. Catholic Relief Services denied the employer’s attempts to remove itself from the purview of Title VII and the EPA due to its religious affiliation. With respect to Title VII’s exception for employees of religious entities, the court held that the relevant provision, § 702(a), was meant to allow religious organizations to hire only individuals of the same religion; it did not provide blanket protection for religious organizations to discriminate against those who do not share particular beliefs or standards of conduct tied to its religious identity. “A plain reading of § 702(a) reveals Congress's intent to protect religious organizations seeking to employ co-religionists, but the reading urged by [employer] would cause a relatively narrowly written exception to swallow all of Title VII, effectively exempting religious organizations wholesale.”97 The court also held that the employer was not protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”).98 The court noted that the Supreme Court had left open the question of Title VII’s interaction with RFRA. The court then reasoned that the plain language of RFRA was directed at restricting activities of the government that might substantially burden the free exercise of religion.99 “This court finds as a matter of law that RFRA restricts the government rather than private parties, and so [employer] may not assert RFRA as an affirmative defense against [plaintiff’s] claims.”100 Finally, the court held that both Title VII and the EPA were generally applicable laws that did not selectively burden religiously motivated conduct while exempting comparable secularly motivated conduct, and so did not violate the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment. The court concluded: “Our Constitution's solicitousness of religious exercise is not carte blanche for any religious institution wishing to place itself beyond the reach of any neutral and generally applicable law.”101 The court ultimately certified two questions for decision by the Maryland Supreme Court: whether the Maryland Equal Pay for Equal Work Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and whether the Maryland Fair Employment Practices Act allows certain religious organizations to discriminate because of sexual orientation.102 This is only one example of Bostock’s impact on the American workplace and on equal pay jurisprudence, and employers should expect more. Wage Discrimination or Promotion Discrimination. Because higher pay often results from promotions, pay discrimination claims are often combined and conflated with promotion discrimination claims. However, they rely on different theories of discrimination, governed by different statutory schemes. Although both types of claims can be brought under Title VII, only pay discrimination claims can be brought under the EPA. A failure to recognize and respect this difference can be fatal to a plaintiff’s case. In Williams v. State of Illinois,103 a Special Assistant to the General Counsel for the former Governor of Illinois alleged she was discriminated against under the EPA, among other laws, based on the fact that comparable male employees were promoted ahead of her and were therefore paid more.104 The court granted the employer’s motion to dismiss the EPA claim, noting that the complaint alleged that both male and female employees had been promoted over her.105 The court held that those facts contradicted what was needed to establish a viable theory of liability, and that plaintiff had thereby pleaded herself out of court. “Because the Equal Pay Act requires an allegation that different wages are paid to employees of another sex for equal work, the allegation that other women were promoted—and the absence of an allegation that men were paid more for equal work—defeats the Equal Pay Act claim.”106 The dismissal was without prejudiced to plaintiff’s right to amend her complaint. 97 Id. at 253. 98 Id. at 253-54. That statute provides that “a person whose religious exercise has been burdened in violation of this section may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government.” Id. (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1(c)). 99 Id. at 254. 100 Id. 101 Id. at 256. 102 See Doe v. Catholic Relief Servs., No. 20-cv-1815, 2023 WL 155243 (D. Md. Jan. 11, 2023). 103 Williams v. State of Ill., No. 1:21-cv-02495, 2022 WL 952745 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 30, 2022). 104 Id. at *1. 105 Id. at *4. 106 Id.
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