©2026 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Developments in Equal Pay Litigation 2026 | 93 scope of the EEOC charge and investigation.”749 The charge specified “equal pay” as the basis for plaintiff’s discrimination complaint but did not specify whether the discrimination was based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information. Accordingly, the court held that although plaintiff had exhausted his administrative remedies with respect to his equal pay allegations, he had not done so to the extent they were based on race discrimination: “By contrast, with respect to the seventh cause of action, it appears to be based upon the allegations concerning equal pay and retaliation. On those grounds, [plaintiff] did not fail to exhaust, however, to the extent he now tries to base this upon theories of race discrimination and harassment, those, he failed to exhaust.”750 *As of the date of publication, the EEOC has not released its 2025 enforcement and litigation statistics. Title VII claims also differ in other, more substantive respects. For example, in EEOC v. First Metropolitan Financial Service, Inc.,751 the EEOC alleged that a financial lending company paid two female Branch Managers less than male Branch Managers. The employer argued plaintiffs did not have substantially similar responsibilities as their male Branch Manager comparators because they had been hired to manage a new branch, which had relatively few outstanding loans, and they therefore had less responsibility compared to managers of more established branches.752 The court held that, although work in more established branches may have impacted managers’ day-to-day responsibilities, the record did not show that those circumstances had any effect on the employer’s decisions regarding their pay: “the supposed high demands imposed on [comparator] did not, according to [employer’s COO’s] deposition, significantly impact [employer’s] decision to pay [comparator] a higher base salary.”753 749 Id. at *5. 750 Id. at *6. See also EEOC v. Denton Cnty., No. 4:17-cv-614, 2018 WL 4951990, at *5 (E.D. Tex. Oct. 12, 2018) (“The determination indicates that the EEOC investigation focused on wage disparity, which reasonably grew out of the charge of discrimination where [charging party] also complained of unequal pay. Neither the charge of discrimination nor the EEOC determination even state that [charging party] was terminated, which is the adverse employment action alleged for both her Title VII claim for retaliation and claim that she was treated less favorably, much less do these documents mention any of the factual allegations to support her claims.”). 751 EEOC v. First Metro. Fin. Serv., Inc., 449 F. Supp. 3d 638 (N.D. Miss. 2020). Although the EEOC initially brought this case as a class action complaint under the EPA and Title VII, it later informed the court that the class of aggrieved parties who had originally joined the suit had been reduced to only two females. Id. at 642. 752 Id. at 644. 753 Id. The court noted that “equal does not mean identical,” and that “[i]n determining whether job differences are so substantial as to make jobs unequal, it is pertinent to inquire whether and to what extent significance has been given to such differences in setting
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTkwMTQ4