BOSTON (CN) — A psychiatric hospital in Maine that paid male psychologists almost twice as much as female ones is liable for more than $180,000 in damages, the First Circuit panel held in 2-1decision released late Thursday evening.
Psychologist Clare Mundell and two female colleagues earned about $50 an hour working at Acadia Hospital in Bangor while two male psychologists earned $90 an hour or more, according to Mundell's 2021 complaint. The hospital attributed the difference to legitimate market factors, but a federal judge first granted summary judgment to Mundell in February 2022, ruling to award her triple in lost wages.
The three-judge appeals panel determined that even if the difference in pay was due to “market forces” and wasn’t the result of deliberate sex discrimination, the discrepancy was ultimately discriminatory.
The Maine equal-pay law “provides no role for the employer's motivation,” U.S. Circuit Judge Kermit Lipez wrote in an 55-page decision. “It is the unequal pay, not the reasons for it, that constitutes the impermissible discrimination.”
The appeals panel cited a state law that requires equal pay for “comparable work on jobs that have comparable requirements relating to skill, effort and responsibility.” It contains specific exceptions for merit increases, seniority systems and shift differentials, but Acadia argued that there are plenty of other good reasons for pay differences that have nothing to do with sex discrimination.
A Maine law says that “an employer may not discriminate … on the basis of sex by paying wages” that are unequal. According to Acadia, that means that employers are liable only if they pay unequal wages in order to discriminate on the basis of sex. But Mundell argued — and Lipez agreed — that paying unequal wages is in and of itself discrimination on the basis of sex, regardless of the employer’s motive.
“The only reasonable construction … is that liability attaches with proof that employees of one sex are being paid less than employees of another sex for comparable work in comparable jobs, regardless of intent,” Lipez, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote.
The ruling will cause “devastating practical consequences for Maine businesses,” Acadia Hospital in Bangor said.
In Maine — the country’s most rural state, according to the Census Bureau — employers often have to pay some workers more than others to get them to move to rustic locales, Acadia claimed. Companies might also legitimately pay higher wages in order to recruit minorities, compensate employees who work in different geographic areas for different costs of living, reward workers who generate more business and reflect the fact that some employees work from home.
Lipez was joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Lara Montecalvo, who was appointed by President Joe Biden. But U.S. Circuit Chief Judge David Barron, an Obama appointee, filed a dissenting opinion, arguing that the statute was hopelessly ambiguous and the question should be certified to the Maine Supreme Court to get a definitive answer.
Lipez conceded that the statute was confusing, but he said there was no need to ask the Maine court to resolve the confusion.
“A statute's complexity … does not necessarily render it ambiguous,” he wrote. "A court cannot wave the ambiguity flag just because it found the regulation impenetrable on first read."
Lipez also noted that the federal Equal Pay Act and a large number of state equal-pay laws don’t require proof that an employer intended to discriminate. But Barron countered that those laws are worded differently from the one in Maine.
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