Opinion ID: 351700
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Period of Backpay Recovery Under the Equal Pay Act

Text: 88 Congress has imposed time limits upon the initiation of employee suits under the Equal Pay Act for either backpay or liquidated damages. The relevant statute specifies that any such action 89 may be commenced within two years after the cause of action accrued, and . . . shall be forever barred unless commenced within two years after the cause of action accrued, except that a cause of action arising out of a willful violation may be commenced within three years after the cause of action accrued . . . . 199 90 The District Court found NWA's Equal Pay Act violation willfull within the meaning of this provision 200 and awarded the Equal Pay Act plaintiffs 201 backpay 202 for three-year periods preceding the filing of timely written consents. 203 NWA contends that retrospection of its backpay liability for periods exceeding two years is an erroneous application of the statute. The core argument, as we understand, is that the statutory word willfull connotes an unwholesome state of mind said to be absent in this case, particularly since in an independent ruling the District Court denied liquidated damages upon a finding that NWA's sex-discriminatory policies were pursued in good faith. 204 (1) The Standard For Determining Willfulness 91 The suit-limitation provision does not undertake to define willfull on its own, nor have we encountered elsewhere in companion legislation any definition seemingly referable to that provision. 205 Courts wrestling with its facial ambiguity have usually subscribed to one or the other of two divergent views. Some, notably in the Fifth Circuit, read willfull as requiring nothing more than knowledge of the possible applicability of the governing statute to the conduct eventually held to be legally wanting. 206 Stated most simply, says the Court of Appeals for that circuit, we think the test should be: Did the employer know the (statute) was in the picture. 207 Other courts take a differently worded approach: 208 (W)illful, declares one, retains its traditional meaning that violations of the Act must be deliberate, voluntary and intentional. 209 NWA urges upon us still another meaning: that willfull requires bad purpose as an element of the violation. 92 Under some statutes, particularly those directed at conduct involving moral turpitude, an act is willfull only if done malevolently, wickedly or criminally. 210 Under other types of statutes, it suffices that the act was performed consciously and voluntarily, rather than inadvertently or accidentally. 211 Betwixt these two formulations, willfull has been given various other meanings, 212 although shades of difference ofttimes diminish when the probe extends beneath the surface. 213 Because of its inherent instability, only the most careful consideration of the term willfull in its legislative context can provide satisfactory assurance that eventually it will take on its proper cast. 214 And so it does here. 93 The suit-limitation provision in its original form was part of the congressional response to an existing emergency 215 three decades ago. In 1946, the Supreme Court had held that employees were entitled to portal-to-portal pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. 216 In 1947, Congress declared that allowance of claims therefor would create wholly unexpected liabilities, immense in amount and retroactive in operation, 217 and enacted legislation to deal with the situation. 218 A limitation period of two years for all claims 219 was designed specifically to eliminate differences arising from the varying and extended periods of time for which, under the laws of the several States, potential retroactive liability may be imposed upon employers . . . . 220 Its aim thus was to establish for employee recoveries a nationally uniform cutoff point, whether for purposeful or innocent transgressions of the Act. 94 The limitation period continued at two years until enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1966. 221 During the process leading to that legislation, an effort was made to enlarge the limitation period to three years for any type of violation, for reasons expressed by the then Secretary of Labor: 95 The lengthening of the statute of limitations to three years will allow workers more time to familiarize themselves with their legal right to back wages and thus improve enforcement of the Act. The short statute of limitations gives competitive advantage to violators and penalizes many workers in the collection of wages legally due. The Federal Criminal Statute runs for three years or more. The existing two-year period under (the Fair Labor Standards Act) is also shorter than that allowed creditors of employees to collect money owed for food and rent bills. 222 96 As the bill emerged from committee, however, the limitation provision appeared in its current form. 223 The period had been lengthened to three years for a willfull violation, but for others it remained at two. 224 We have not uncovered any clear-cut statement in the legislative history as to why the extension to three years was thus encumbered. There is ample room, however, for an informed belief that, with the amendments' broad expansion of the Act's coverage 225 and resultant concern over the effect on the small businessman, 226 an unqualified increase of the limitation period would bear too heavily upon an inevitably larger group of excusably inadvertent violators. 227 97 Be that as it may, the important consideration is the absence from the legislative history of any visible movement to impart criminal-law precepts of moral culpability into the statutory scheme as a condition to accountability for a civil wrong. There is nothing to suggest that the congressional effort either in 1947 or 1966 was the exaction of a penalty, to which moral culpability would be highly relevant. On the contrary, the implication is almost irresistible that the objective consistently was the erection of a bulwark to extensive liability, and to economic hardships that would follow. Because in 1947 Congress feared a crisis from enforcement of an unexpected multitude of newly-arising claims, and because in 1966 the coverage of the Act was being greatly widened to encompass a host of enterprises never before subjected, it seems evident that on each occasion Congress wished to insure that those who were unwittingly intercepted by the Act were not impacted with a three-year statute of limitations. These circumstances undergird the unlikelihood that willfull, in this role, was intended to exact bad purpose on the employer's part rather than simply a lesser factor reducing the employer's predicament to something less than a wholly unanticipated prospect of late-found liability as a precondition to an extra year's recovery. 98 It seems also significant that the requirement of willfulness is not one which must be met in order that there be liability, but rather is one to be satisfied before there can be expanded liability. The nonwillful character of a violation of the Act does not defeat recovery, although it does confine the period therefor to two years, and a willful violation lengthens the period merely by another year. An employer out of compliance, but not willfully so, is spared the burden of recompense beyond a period of two years; an employer willfully out of compliance, despite his willfulness is spared beyond a period of three years. The relatively small difference between the two- and three-year periods tends to question any notion that the distinguishing criterion was to be moral rather than intellectual culpability. Since a morally innocent employer is nonetheless liable for two years, one may ask why a willful violator's accountability is for only one year more if the term is to imply wicked purpose. 99 We realize, of course, that a lighter burden would subject a good many employers to the extra year of liability notwithstanding that their violations may represent little or no more than an erroneous interpretation of the statutory requirements. On the other hand, employers as a class occupy a much superior position vis-a-vis their employees to ascertain the effect of the law upon their business policies and practices. Even where the closeness of the question of the statute's applicability hampers or forestalls absolute decisional accuracy, there is no good reason for translating the employer's error into a loss of pay for the employee. 100 Atop all else, the Equal Pay Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of which the former is a part, undoubtedly are remedial statutes, as such to be liberally construed in favor of their intended beneficiaries. 228 In light of this, as well as the historical backdrop against which we must view this legislation, we could not readily attribute to Congress a purpose to impose upon employee-claimants the much heavier burden sometimes, perhaps, a well-nigh impossible burden of proving an iniquitous employer state-of-mind as a prerequisite to a backpay recovery for the third year. We reject, then, a definition of willful in the suit-limitation provision which would demand proof that the employer entertained a bad purpose or an evil intent. At the same time, we need not go so far as to hold that a violation is willful merely because from the employer's viewpoint the statute was in the picture. 229 Nor need we undertake to precisely define willful for cases closer than the one at bar. 230 We think that at the very least the employer's noncompliance is willful when he is cognizant of an appreciable possibility that he may be subject to the statutory requirements and fails to take steps reasonably calculated to resolve the doubt. 231 We think, too, that the same conclusion follows when an equally aware employer consciously and voluntarily charts a course which turns out to be wrong. 232 Beyond these holdings, we need not venture now. 101 (2) The Decision On NWA 102 The District Court expressly found NWA's multifold violations of the Equal Pay Act to be willful. 233 The court explained: 103 The Equal Pay Act violation was willful in that (NWA) was fully aware of the Equal Pay Act and adopted a deliberate and knowing course of conduct despite its awareness. The Court does not find an intentional, bad faith, attempt to evade the law. The judgment of (NWA) that its conduct would not be found to be in violation of the Equal Pay Act has been found to be in error. The conduct of (NWA) in the exercise of that judgment was willful. 234 104 This finding is fully binding upon us unless clearly erroneous. 235 NWA does not say that the finding lacks evidentiary support in the record, nor could it. An official of NWA testified by deposition that since 1963 the company was aware of the Equal Pay Act, was generally familiar with its provisions, and had internally reviewed it for its possible application to the company. 236 NWA understood the Act's central provision that male and female employees cannot be paid differently for performing substantially the same work, and considered its own policies respecting cabin attendants in that light. 237 The company concluded that the Act was inapplicable because it felt that the purser and stewardess jobs were substantially different. 238 Even after the filing of charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the subsequent filing of this lawsuit, NWA continued to adhere to that position. 239 No written memorandum on the subject was prepared or received by the company, although it may have been provided oral advisories by a trade association. 240 The witness had no recollection that NWA ever conferred with outside counsel on the subject, and he did not specifically mention any sort of legal advice at all. 241 We have not been referred to, nor have we discovered, any other evidence bearing on the subject. We think the witness' testimony amply sustains the District Court's finding that NWA was fully aware of the Equal Pay Act and adopted a deliberate and knowing course of conduct despite its awareness. 242 105 NWA asserts, however, that the facts found are legally insufficient to enable the conclusion that the violation was willful. It argues for an interpretation of the term which would require bad purpose or evil intent, 243 which the District Court's findings disclaimed. 244 We have declined acceptance of that definition of willfulness, 245 and in our view of the most that willfulness involves 246 we are satisfied that the necessary elements are present here. NWA not only knew of the Equal Pay Act and its content but also correctly understood its prohibition on different salary levels for men and women performing substantially similar work. With little or nothing beyond internal consideration by laymen even after the present legal challenge got under way the company consciously though erroneously concluded that its treatment of pursers and stewardesses was unaffected by the Act. We deem that sufficient to comprise willfulness; in the District Court's words, (t)he conduct of the Company in the exercise of that judgment was willful. 247 For reasons already extensively articulated, 248 we agree. 106 It is also contended by NWA that the District Court was logically inconsistent in finding that the Equal Pay Act violation occurred in good faith 249 and in also finding that the violation was willful. This claim is of a piece with NWA's insistence that willfulness is inextricably tied to bad purpose. 250 We have said that it is not; 251 we have equated willfulness, rather, with conduct which is conscious and voluntary in character. 252 It follows that a practice may be deliberate, and thus willful, notwithstanding motivation that is honest. Even if NWA pursued in good faith the policies which the District Court held to be unlawful, its conduct was willful within the meaning of the limitation provision.