© 2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2025 ed. | 111 employer may not pay “an employee an extra annual bonus in order to make up for the fact that he or she has a lower base salary.”653 Only one court has analyzed MEPA in any detail since the 2018 amendments,654 and the court did not refer to the Attorney General’s guidance. The court concluded that three of four male employees to whom plaintiff sought to compare herself were “plainly inapposite comparators” because two had clinical duties, as opposed to plaintiff’s exclusively research-based duties, and the third was “substantially senior” to plaintiff.655 As to the fourth male employee, the court concluded that “the dearth of information” about his skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions “precludes a finding” that “his job was comparable.”656 The court thus entered summary judgment for the employer.657 B. Permitted Justifications for Wage Differentials Under the amended MEPA, an employer can avoid liability for a wage differential between employees of opposite genders only if it can establish that the difference is based on one of the following factors: A system that rewards seniority; provided, however, that time spent on leave due to a pregnancy-related condition and protected parental, family, and medical leave shall not reduce seniority A merit system A system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of production, sales, or revenue Geographic location in which a job is performed Education, training, or experience to the extent such factors are reasonably related to the particular job in question Travel, if the travel is a regular and necessary condition of the particular job658 653 “An Act to Establish Pay Equity: Overview and Frequently Asked Questions,” available at Equal Pay Act Guidance: Overview and FAQ, https://www.mass.gov/massachusetts-equal-pay-law (visited Mar. 5, 2025). 654 Lee v. Howard Hughes Med. Inst., 607 F. Supp. 3d 52, 68 (D. Mass. 2022). In Rucker v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 621 F. Supp. 3d 212, 219 (D. Mass. 2022), the district court granted summary judgment to the employer on a MEPA claim in one short paragraph, noting plaintiff had failed to oppose summary judgment and “[i]n any event, the record reflects that during plaintiff's employment, there were no male project coordinators and thus no appropriate comparators for the purpose of the Equal Pay Act.” The court concluded, without describing the underlying facts, that the “few male employees identified by the parties performed substantially dissimilar work.” Id. 655 Lee, 607 F. Supp. 3d at 68. 656 Id. 657 Id. 658 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 105A.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTkwMTQ4