Court Opinion

ID: 9467317
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:45:25.503226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:17.325872
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I concur in the result obtained by the per curiam opinion and in the judgment of the court, but I do not concur in either the opinion of Judge Winter or Judge Hall.
I respectfully dissent to the finding of any liability on the part of the defendant based on the record in this case and the opinion of the district court.
In Judge Hall’s opinion, at p. 1096, he calls attention to Appendix A of that opinion, and the same is again called attention to on page 1097. The substance of Judge Hall’s opinion is that the facts as stated in Appendix A are sufficient to show liability. Indeed, the facts disclosed in Appendix A are the only facts with respect to pay differentials on which liability is based, and the opinion carefully confines its consideration of pay comparability to the pay of the three female claimants and the pay of Price, a male employee. P. 1097. Rather than liability, in my opinion the facts as disclosed by Appendix A show that there is not any liability.
Among the findings of fact of the district court is that “the raises given to customer correspondents were cost of living increases [having nothing to do with sex, of course] to compensate for inflation.” That being true, the finding of fact not having been found erroneous, beginning pay should be the only relevant inquiry. Because Scog-gins’ beginning pay, as stated in Judge Hall’s opinion, pp. 1096-97, n. 4, was properly held to be “irrelevant” to the resolution of the majority on the finding of liability, the only employee whose pay is subject to comparison for the purposes of this case is Price, as is acknowledged in Judge Hall’s opinion. And Price’s beginning pay was lower than that of any of the claimants. Thus, liability based on the beginning pay of Price could not logically be found. Neither could liability be found as a matter of law.
The effect of Judge Hall’s opinion is to require consideration of longevity in the consideration of damages but to deny the consideration of longevity in addressing liability. I think the two conclusions are necessarily inconsistent as an abstract proposition, but more especially here in view of the unrefuted finding of the district court that pay raises for customer correspondents were on account of “cost of living increases” and thus had nothing to do with either longevity or sex.
It is further my opinion that the fact that an employer does not have a “system” of pay increases does not make it liable for pay differentials unless it discriminates on account of sex, which has not been shown here.