26 | Developments in Equal Pay Litigation 2026 ©2026 Seyfarth Shaw LLP case.152 For instance, in Thompson v. Collins,153 a New York district court addressed a wage discrimination claim brought under the EPA by a plaintiff who claimed she performed duties that would typically be associated with a higher pay grade. She alleged that her supervisor “refused to give [her] the pay grade and title” higher than the GS-8 status she held, even though she “outperformed [her] white male coworkers (who were GS9, 11, 12).” The court rejected the plaintiff’s attempt to establish a prima facie case of discrimination based solely on her claims that she “perform[ed] the duties of an Inventory Manager NX (GS-9 and GS-11)” because she did not describe what those duties were. Despite the court’s acknowledgement that that the bar is not high on this claim, (“the Second Circuit has yet to require plaintiffs to identify a specific comparator”), the pleading bar is not non-existent. For those reasons, the plaintiff’s EPA claims were dismissed. Some industries are naturally more amenable to this kind of defense than others. For example, several courts have noted that it is particularly difficult to compare professionals in the academic and medical fields. In Goulet v. University of Mississippi,154 a university professor alleged she was underpaid compared to her male colleagues, even though she was the highest paid non-chair faculty member in her department. She sought to maintain her equal pay claim by pointing to faculty members in other departments as comparators, arguing that “her contract is not with the Department of Biology, but rather with the university and the Department of Biology is part of the university, not a stand-alone entity.”155 The court held that this argument was contrary to the law in the Fifth Circuit because “[d]ifferent job levels, different skill levels, previous training and experience: all may account for unequal salaries in an environment free from discrimination.”156 With respect to one comparator who was the former chair of plaintiff’s department, the biology department, but now worked as a professor in the university’s School of Pharmacy, the court observed: “This professor . . . is therefore not even in the same school as the plaintiff, much less the same department, and he works under a different supervisor.”157 Plaintiff’s arguments with respect to comparators in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry were similarly rejected because they work “in a different department and under a different supervisor than the plaintiff.”158 This is consistent with the Ninth Circuit’s conclusion in Freyd v. University of Oregon, even though the court in that case reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the employer.159 The district court in that case acknowledged the unique complexities that attach to the notion of “equal pay for equal work” in the university setting, noting that the nature of the academic setting allowed different professors in the same discipline to choose different paths of knowledge and pursue endeavors that create different and unique value to the institution.160 The Ninth Circuit later reversed that aspect of the 152 Some courts require plaintiffs in EPA cases to allege enough facts in their complaint to show that they not only share the same job responsibilities with the alleged comparator, but also have the same experience, training, education, and ability. Thurston v. W. All. Bank, No. CV-23-01097-PHX-DLR, 2024 WL 961433 (D. Ariz. Mar. 6, 2024) (dismissing EPA claim in which plaintiff failed to allege facts supporting that she had "similar education, training, or experience" as male comparators, noting that skill includes "experience, training, education, and ability"); Shaw v. North Carolina, No. 5:23-CV-624-FL, 2024 WL 1259452 (E.D.N.C. Mar. 25, 2024) (dismissing EPA claim in which plaintiff merely listed comparators' "names, titles, salaries, and number of employees supervised" without sufficient factual allegations about job duties, qualifications, or showing that jobs were "virtually identical"). 153 Thompson v. Collins, No. 22-CV-4732 (EK)(SDE), 2025 WL 2962734, at *6 (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 21, 2025) 154 Goulet v. Univ. of Miss., No. 3:22-cv-89-NBB-JMV, 2023 WL 4707134 (N.D. Miss. July 24, 2023). 155 Id. at *2 (internal quotations omitted). 156 Id. (quoting Plemer v. Parsons-Gilbane, 713 F.2d 1127, 1138 (5th Cir. 1983)). 157 Id. at *3. 158 Id. 159 Freyd v. Univ. of Or., 990 F.3d 1211, 1221 (9th Cir. 2021). In that case, a university professor of psychology alleged she was paid less than other professors at the same university for performing the same work. Plaintiff had become concerned that the salary inequities in her department were related to gender and, in particular, that her salary was below that of male professors in the same department with less seniority. Freyd v. Univ. of Or., 384 F. Supp. 3d 1284, 1289 (D. Or. May 2, 2019). However, the university decided not to offer her a raise after concluding that she was compensated at a higher rate than the majority of professors in the College of Arts and Sciences, and that any discrepancy with respect to her salary versus her male colleagues was attributable to retention raises and significant differences in job duties. Id. 160 Freyd v. Univ. of Or., 384 F. Supp. 3d 1284, 1288 (D. Or. May 2, 2019). The court also held that a university must offer competitive salaries in order to attract top faculty while at the same time maintaining a fair compensation system for all professors. Id. In particular, the court held that senior professors and professors who take on introductory courses and devote extra time to
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