In EEOC v. Port Authority, decided 9/29/14, the Second Circuit provided guidance on the level of specificity necessary to survive a motion to dismiss a claim under the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U.S.C. 206(d).
This case began with a charge of discrimination filed by a female Port Authority attorney, and led to an investigation into the Port Authority’s pay practices.
“[T]o prove a violation of the EPA, a plaintiff must demonstrate that “[1] the employer pays different wages to employees of the opposite sex; [2] the employees perform equal work on jobs requiring equal skill, effort, and responsibility; and [3] the jobs are performed under similar working conditions.”
In affirming the district court’s dismissal of the EEOC’s lawsuit under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c), the Second Circuit held “that the EEOC’s failure to allege any facts concerning the attorneys’ actual job duties deprives the Court of any basis from which to draw a reasonable inference that the attorneys performed ‘equal work,’ the touchstone of an EPA claim”, and therefore “the complaint failed to state a plausible claim for relief.”
The court thus rejected the “EEOC’s theory that ‘an attorney is an attorney is an attorney'”.