©2026 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Developments in Equal Pay Litigation 2026 | 79 defendant's RIF “had no basis in fact, or is insufficient to explain her termination.”622 This was based on multiple factors including the hiring of replacements shortly after plaintiff’s termination, alleged genderbased comments by supervisors, and other evidence of differential treatment.623 The court found that a reasonable jury could regard these factors as establishing that the RIF was a pretext to hide the defendant’s unlawful retaliation for the plaintiff’s complaints about gender-based salary disparities. 2. Proving An “Establishment” The federal EPA requires plaintiffs to compare their wages against other employees within the same physical place of business in which they work. According to regulations issued by the EEOC, a single establishment “refers to a distinct physical place of business” within a company, and “each physically separate place of business is ordinarily considered a separate establishment” under the EPA.624 The regulations contrast this with the entire business, or “enterprise,” which “may include several separate places of business.”625 Courts presume that multiple offices are not a “single establishment” absent unusual circumstances.626 Not surprisingly, defining the scope of an establishment is a frequently contested issue in EPA litigation. For example, in Moazzaz v. Metlife, Inc.,627 a Senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer and Interim Global Head of Digital Strategy alleged she was paid less than male employees with similar-level positions, such as the Head of Japan Operations and Europe, Middle East and Africa Chief Financial Officer.628 The employer argued those positions were too geographically separate from plaintiff’s position and therefore not within the same “establishment” as defined by the EPA. However, the court held plaintiff had alleged sufficient facts at the pleading stage to allow the case to proceed based on those comparators. The court noted that “[t]he foreign comparators all appear to be members of [employer’s] leadership team,” who reported directly to plaintiff and other centralized high-level officers. The court concluded that “[i]t is thus improbable that foreign [employer] personnel, instead of, say, . . . the Head of Human Resources for Global Technology and Operations, would have been responsible for the Head of Asia IT's specific salary.”629 Similarly, in Black v. Barrett Business Services, Inc.,630 the District Court for the District of Idaho held the plaintiff did not work in the same establishment as all but one of her comparators because the other managers worked at another branch.631 In the Ninth Circuit, the “establishment” question depends not just 622 Id. 623 Id. 624 29 C.F.R. §1620.9(a). 625 Id. 626 See, e.g., Meeks v. Computer Assocs. Int'l, 15 F.3d 1013, 1017 (11th Cir. 1994) (holding that evidence did not “demonstrate the level of centralization necessary to justify treating all of the company's technical writers as working at a single establishment” where “the specific salary to be offered a job applicant is determined by the local supervisor”); Kassman v. KPMG LLP, 416 F. Supp. 3d 252, 287 (S.D.N.Y. 2018) (finding that pay and promotion decisions were not sufficiently “centralized” to amount to “unusual circumstances” warranting a finding that the many offices and practice areas qualify as a single “establishment” under the EPA, because “although [defendant] set generally applicable guidelines, individual pay and promotion decisions were left to the discretion of local practice area leaders,” which decisions were “reviewed by firm leadership on an aggregate basis against budget”). 627 Moazzaz v. Metlife, Inc., No. 19-cv-10531 (JPO), 2021 WL 827648 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 4, 2021). 628 Id. at *5. 629 Id. See also Boisjoly v. Aaron Manor, Inc., No. 3:21-cv-01621-MPS, 2022 WL 17272372, at *1 (D. Conn. Nov. 29, 2022) (refusing to dismiss at the pleading stage plaintiff’s EPA claims on the basis of the employer’s argument that her comparators worked at a different “establishment” because such determinations are fact-intensive and should not be made without the benefit of discovery. “[Plaintiff] alleges that [employer] is a central administrative unit that hires employees, sets wages, and assigns the location of employment for its employees. This is enough at the pleadings stage to allow her to take discovery to prove whether unusual circumstances are present”) (internal citations omitted); Vasser v. Mapco Express, LLC, 546 F. Supp. 3d 694, 700 (M.D. Tenn. 2021) (holding that plaintiffs had adequately alleged that a large chain of gas stations and convenience stores were a single establishment under the EPA because “Plaintiffs allege that [employer] has ‘a rigid top down, hierarchical corporate structure,’ with a ‘top down wage policy.’ . . . These allegations are sufficient for an initial finding of a ‘single establishment’ at the motion to dismiss stage”). 630 Black v. Barrett Bus. Servs., Inc., No. 1:18-cv-96-CWD, 2019 WL 2250263 (D. Idaho May 23, 2019). 631 Id. at *5.
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