Opinion ID: 201705
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Corning Glass Burden-Shifting Framework

Text: 58 To prevail on a claim under the EPA, the plaintiff must first establish a prima facie case by showing that the employer paid different wages to specific employees of different sexes for jobs performed under similar working conditions and requiring equal skill, effort and responsibility. Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U.S. 188, 195, 94 S.Ct. 2223, 41 L.Ed.2d 1 (1974). Such a showing is harder to make than the prima facie showing under the McDonnell framework because it requires the plaintiff to identify specific employees of the opposite sex holding positions requiring equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working positions who were more generously compensated. Petsch-Schmid v. Boston Edison Co., 914 F.Supp. 697 (D.Mass.1996). The EPA is more concerned with substance than title, so Ingram is free to bring EPA claims against male employees holding different positions than she held if she can establish that they performed comparable work. 59 Equal responsibility, as it is used in the Act, is defined as concern[ing] the degree of accountability required in the performance of the job, with emphasis on the importance of the job obligation. 29 C.F.R. § 1620.17. Establishment, as it is used in the Act, refers to a distinct physical place of business rather than to an entire business or `enterprise' which may include several separate places of business. 29 C.F.R. § 1620.9. Accordingly, Ingram's EPA claim focuses on two male employees within a single establishment — the Lawrence branch. 60 Once the plaintiff establishes a prima facie case of an unlawful wage differential, the burden shifts to the employer to show that the differential is justified under one of the Act's four exceptions. At this stage, the Act's exceptions serve as affirmative defenses on which the employer carries the burden of proof, not just production. Corning Glass, 417 U.S. at 196, 94 S.Ct. 2223.