80 | Developments in Equal Pay Litigation 2025 ©2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP to plaintiff, the court held that those alleged facts “sufficiently alleged that Defendant [manager] exerted supervisory authority over her.”618 Similarly, in Gunaldo v. Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University,619 the court held that there were sufficient allegations to establish that the Director of HR of a university could be held liable as an employer. According to the court, the complaint “does plausibly allege that [Director of HR] had some control over [plaintiff’s] salary raise, . . . and that [Director of HR] maintained [plaintiff’s] employment records . . . .”620 The court also was satisfied that the complaint alleged that plaintiff had been told that HR was responsible for employee raises, and so it could “reasonably infer that [Director of HR] had at least some control over [plaintiff’s] compensation and played a role in raising [plaintiff’s] salary by two percent.”621 The timing of when the individual manager actually exercised the appropriate amount of operation control over a plaintiff is also 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.622 The plaintiff alleged these underpayments took place from 2017 until she was removed from payroll in July 2019.623 However, the CEO she sued did not attain the position until May 1, 2019. 624 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. 625 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. 626 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 a later case against the same university, Muslow v. Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College,627 the district court for the Eastern District of Louisiana originally allowed a complaint to proceed against some members of the university’s administration.628 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 that they cannot be considered plaintiffs’ employer under the economic realities test. 618 Id. at *4. See also Davis v. Dawgs of St. John, Inc., No. 3:20-cv-0112, 2022 WL 17735829, at *23 (D.V.I. Dec. 16, 2022) (refusing to grant motion to dismiss filed by restaurant owners sued in their individual capacity under the EPA, finding that plaintiff had adequately alleged that they “jointly own, operate and/or manage the business known as [restaurant], and that Individual Defendants exercised control over significant aspects of the company's day-to-day functions, including compensation of employees”). 619 Gunaldo v. Bd. of Supervisors of La. State Univ., No. 20-cv-154, 2020 WL 4584186 (E.D. La. Aug. 10, 2020). 620 Id. at *14. 621 Id. 622 19-CV-10531 (JPO), 2024 WL 1312995, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 26, 2024). 623 Id. 624 Id. 625 Id. 626 Id. 627 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). 628 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”).
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