©2026 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Developments in Equal Pay Litigation 2026 | 83 some control over [plaintiff’s] compensation and played a role in raising [plaintiff’s] salary by two percent.”662 The timing of when the individual manager actually exercised the appropriate amount of operation control over a plaintiff is an important factor in individual liability cases. In Moazzaz v. Met Life Inc., the Plaintiff sued the CEO of her employer in his individual capacity for failure to pay her the same as her male counterparts who performed the same work.663 The plaintiff alleged these underpayments took place from 2017 until she was removed from payroll in July 2019.664 However, the CEO she sued did not attain the position until May 1, 2019. 665 Prior to being CEO, the individual Defendant had no authority over the asset portfolio the Plaintiff managed, did not review or evaluate any of her work, and was not involved in any decisions related to her promotion or termination. 666 As a result, the court found the CEO was entitled to summary judgment on any alleged underpayments that took place prior to him taking the CEO position on May 1, 2019. 667 Many cases have demonstrated that individual liability is much easier to allege as a possibility in a complaint than it is to prove once the facts are known. For example, in Muslow v. Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College,668 the district court for the Eastern District of Louisiana allowed a complaint to proceed against some members of the university’s administration.669 In that case, the full-time General Counsel and a part-time staff attorney working for a university’s health sciences center sued the university and a handful of individual defendants, alleging they were paid less than various comparators who held other high-level positions. After discovery, the individual defendants each filed motions for summary judgment, arguing they could not be considered plaintiffs’ employer under the economic realities test. The court agreed, holding plaintiffs had failed to establish that either the Chancellor or the Vice Chancellor of administration and finance were plaintiffs’ employers. Although the Chancellor had the power to fire plaintiffs, there was no evidence to suggest he could also hire them.670 Nor could plaintiffs establish that he supervised or controlled plaintiffs’ work schedules or conditions of employment, determined their salaries, or maintained their employment records.671 In particular, the court drew a distinction between the ability to recommend raises versus the authority to determine the rate and method of payment: “the fact that Plaintiffs recognize that [Chancellor] could only recommend raises shows that [Chancellor] did not have the authority to determine the rate of pay or method of payment.”672 The court also refused to credit plaintiffs’ argument that the ability to access university records was equivalent to maintaining those records. “Plaintiffs argue that [Chancellor] satisfies this prong because ‘[the university] as an institution maintained all employees’ HR records which [Chancellor] had access to at any point in his role as Chancellor. Plaintiffs’ logic is breathtaking: under this argument, every person who has access to the [university] system would satisfy this prong.’”673 662 Id. 663 19-CV-10531 (JPO), 2024 WL 1312995, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 26, 2024). 664 Id. 665 Id. 666 Id. 667 Id. 668 Muslow v. Bd. of Supervisors of La. State Univ. and Agric. and Mech. Coll., No. 19-cv-11793, 2022 WL 1642137 (E.D. La. May 24, 2022). 669 See Muslow v. Bd. of Supervisors of La. State Univ., No. 19-cv-11793, 2020 WL 6483134, at *11 (E.D. La. Nov. 4, 2020) (finding that plaintiff sufficiently alleged that Vice President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel of university was “employer” of attorneys in its legal department because complaint alleged that he “had power over Plaintiffs’ contracts, that he organized legal work at [university], and that he reviewed employee salaries and status. Assuming the veracity of these statements, as is appropriate at this stage, this is enough to allege that [legal officer] was an employer under the FLSA to survive a motion to dismiss, even if the facts established at a later stage of the litigation tell a different tale”). 670 Muslow, 2022 WL 1642137, at *32-33. 671 Id. at *33-34. 672 Id. at *34 (internal citations and quotations omitted). 673 Id.
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