Opinion ID: 439951
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Liquidated Damages Calculation

Text: 115 NWA next argues that, even if the district court properly determined that the statute entitled the Equal Pay Act plaintiffs to liquidated damages, the years 1974 and 1975 should have been left out of the calculation. These are the relevant facts. NWA's contract with the cabin attendants' union expired at the end of 1973. Negotiations for a new contract took place in 1974 and 1975. During that two-year interval, pursers and stewardesses were paid under the terms of the expired contract, which accorded higher pay to pursers. The new contract, signed December 20, 1975, equalized purser and stewardess wage rates 44 and provided for a retroactive adjustment covering the negotiation period. 116 Thus, in early 1976, the stewardesses received retro-pay for the difference between wages paid pursers and stewardesses in 1974 and 1975. The parties agreed on subtraction of this retro-pay from NWA's basic back-pay liability. NWA unsuccessfully sought credit for the retro-pay against liquidated damages as well, and now challenges the district court's refusal to subtract the retro-pay from the liquidated damages award. See Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 582 F.Supp. 280 at 281, 282-284 (D.D.C.1982) [hereafter, Oct. 25, 1982, Mem. Op.], reprinted in J.R.E. 180, 183-89. 117 In opposing credit for the retro-pay against liquidated damages, plaintiffs relied on the district court's November 1973 Findings, 366 F.Supp. at 789, holding that the purser/stewardess pay differential violated the Equal Pay Act. 45 Retroactive adjustment over two years later, plaintiffs argued and the district court agreed, did not relieve NWA of its liquidated damages liability for the years 1974 and 1975, a period during which pursers received, but stewardesses continued to await, the higher pay. NWA, on the other hand, maintained that the retro-pay stewardesses received in 1976 should be treated for all Equal Pay Act remedial purposes as if it had been paid in 1974 and 1975. NWA characterized payments under 1973 contract as merely on account; lump-sum adjustments retroactively establishing actual wage rates for past years, NWA stressed, were a standard feature of labor agreements in the airline industry. See Oct. 25, 1982, Mem.Op. at 282, reprinted in J.R.E. 185 (quoting NWA); NWA Brief at 22, 82. 118 We conclude that the district court appropriately refused to relate back the retro-pay, and thereby exclude 1974 and 1975 from the liquidated damages calculation. The wages involved in fact were not received until two years after they were earned. That reality, in the circumstances here presented, is dispositive of plaintiffs' statutory entitlement to liquidated damages. 119 In rejecting NWA's relate back argument, the district court stressed this central consideration: liquidated damages are not punitive; they are intended to compensate employees for a payment delay which might result in damages too obscure and difficult of proof to be redressed by any other means. Oct. 25, 1982, Mem.Op. at 282-283, reprinted in J.R.E. 185-86 (quoting language appearing in Overnight Motor Transportation Co. v. Missel, 316 U.S. 572, 583-84, 62 S.Ct. 1216, 1222-23, 86 L.Ed. 1682 (1942)); see cases cited supra ----. As its principal ground of objection to the district court's ruling, 46 NWA asserts that section six of the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. Sec. 156 (1982), obligated it to maintain the status quo as to all conditions of employment, including wages, during the two-year pendency of contract negotiations. 47 That Act, we are confident, does not stop an employer from immediately equalizing wages upward in accordance with the judicial determination that an existing wage disparity violates the Equal Pay Act. 48 120 The Railway Labor Act provision NWA cites fosters bargaining over disputes to avert the disruption of commerce strikes and lockouts occasion. See, e.g., Detroit & Toledo Shore Line Railroad Co. v. United Transportation Union, 396 U.S. 142, 148-50, 90 S.Ct. 294, 298-299, 24 L.Ed.2d 325 (1969). But the Equal Pay Act requires equalizing the wages of the lower paid sex up to the level of the higher paid sex. See, e.g., Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U.S. 188, 206-07, 94 S.Ct. 2223, 2233-2234, 41 L.Ed.2d 1 (1974). A court determination of an Equal Pay Act violation leaves nothing for the employer and union to bargain about. Just as the National Labor Relations Act's prohibition against an employer's unilateral change in wages under negotiation 49 gives way to commands for an employer's compliance with other laws, 50 so the analogous provision of the Railway Labor Act erects no obstacle, on the facts here presented, to an employer's immediate payment of equal wages to men and women performing equal work. 121 Stewardesses did not receive until 1976 pay made to pursers in 1974 and 1975; NWA must now compensate for the withholding period, during which it remained out of compliance with the Equal Pay Act, by paying the liquidated damages ordered by the district court. 122