©2026 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Developments in Equal Pay Litigation 2026 | 29 the complaint makes conclusory or boilerplate allegations of similarity without describing job details in sufficient detail.174 Recently, in Almas v. Ad Hoc LLC, a court found a female plaintiff sufficiently pled an Equal Pay Act claim, even though she did not share the same job title as the alleged comparators.175 There, the plaintiff’s complaint compared the relevant duties, skills, and qualifications between the comparators’ positions and her position across different categories, including leadership and management responsibilities, finance oversight responsibilities, and management skills.176 The court found she alleged facts sufficient to state a claim, noting in particular that “identicality is not a prerequisite for a plaintiff to at least enter the door with a viable EPA claim.”177 Similarly, in Angela Marie King v. Koch AG & Energy Solutions, LLC, the court found substantial similarity despite distinct duties where the plaintiff and her male comparators shared a supervisor, were peers for purposes of stratification, worked similar hours and locations, and operated at comparable skill and responsibility levels.178 Formal Job Classifications and Hierarchies. Most often, courts look to specific job duties to determine whether employees’ work is truly equal, and they will discount formal corporate hierarchies or pay grades if they do not reflect the true nature of the work performed by employees. But, where such differences are supported by actual differences in job duties, levels of responsibility, credentials, or merit, such classification schemes can be a powerful defense to an equal pay claim. For example, in Downes v. Board of Trustees of Illinois State University,179 a female university Full Professor alleged that she was underpaid compared to other professors at the same university.180 Specifically, she pointed to six other male Full Professors as comparators, all but one of whom had a higher salary. However, the Court held that she had failed to establish a prima facie case because, among other things, some of those comparators held the honorary designations, “University Professor” or “Distinguished Professor,” in addition to being Full Professors. To receive such designations, professors must meet specific requirements, such as “national recognition for research, production, or leadership in creative or scholarly activities,” having been “identified by students, colleagues, or external agencies as an outstanding teacher,” or “contributed significant public service in accord with their academic discipline.”181 Each Professor earning such a designation would receive an increase in base salary and additional money to fund their future activities, among other things. The other comparators plaintiff identified had served in an administrative position, such as Department Chair or a Director of an academic center, which also came with salary increases. The plaintiff “testified that she has not been nominated for either honorary distinction and does not believe she meets the qualifications to receive them,” and had not held a Chair or Director position. Accordingly, the court held that plaintiff had failed to establish a prima facie case under the EPA because her comparators “have positions distinguishable from [plaintiff], in that they require different skills, effort, and responsibility.”182 174 See, e.g., Kairam v. West Side GI, LLC, 793 F. App’x 23, 26 (2d Cir. 2019) (upholding district court’s dismissal of EPA claim brought by physician plaintiff because “[t]he [complaint] alleges details about [plaintiff’s] position, including, among other things, that she analyzed patterns to see whether particular doctors were experiencing problems with particular insurers,” and “analyzed denials to improve billing procedures,” but with respect to her comparator, she merely alleged that he was paid to run a practice that “involved administrative duties at [the same employer]”). 175 Almas v. Ad Hoc LLC, Civil Action No. 24-1868 (RBW), 2026 WL 592227, at *4-5 (Mar. 3, 2026). 176 Id. at *4. 177 Id. The court did, however, go on to say that it will take much more detail to prove that the jobs were in fact substantially similar after the motion to dismiss stage. Id. 178 Angela Marie King v. Koch AG & Energy Solutions, LLC, No. CV 25-1017-KHV, 2025 WL 2106828 (D. Kan. July 28, 2025). 179 Downes v. Bd. of Trs. of Ill. State Univ., No. 19-cv-1411, 2023 WL 2472859 (C.D. Ill. Mar. 10, 2023). 180 Id. at *8. 181 Id. at *8-9. 182 Id. at *9. The court went on to hold that, even if she had established a prima facie case, her employer had established its affirmative defenses. Among other things, the university was able to point to market factors to explain the pay disparity by showing that Plaintiff’s comparators had been started at higher starting salaries because they had completed their Ph.Ds and had prior teaching experience and multiple publications at their time of hire, which are factors commonly awarded in the education industry: “The parties agree that it is common in the education industry for new faculty to be hired at a higher salary than tenured faculty. When referring to market forces in this context, it means [defendant] must compete to get new talent with Ph.Ds. as Assistant
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