NT Lakis Files Brief On Behalf of CWC With Supreme Court Once Again Urging Reversal of Controversial Ninth Circuit Equal Pay Act Ruling in Rizo v. Yovino

For the second time in three years, NT Lakis has filed on behalf of CWC a “friend-of-the-court” brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in an important case regarding the role prior salary may play in establishing an employee’s compensation and in defending compensation differences under the federal Equal Pay Act’s (EPA) “any other factor other than sex” defense.

The brief urges the High Court to review and reverse a controversial ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Rizo v. Yovino, 950 F.3d 1217 (9th Cir. 2020), a decision with questionable legal reasoning that upended more than 30 years of Ninth Circuit precedent and created a split in the federal circuit courts.

The brief supports the County’s position and contending that absent evidence that an employer is actually using prior salary as a means to discriminate because of sex, there is no basis for excluding prior salary from the broad category of non-sex factors that are allowed under the EPA’s “any other factor” defense.

Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.