Howard v. Campbell Soup Co.

• Decision Date: 30 September 1983
• Docket Number: No. 79 C 4169.,79 C 4169.
• Citation: 593 F. Supp. 470
• Parties: Kay HOWARD, Plaintiff, v. CAMPBELL SOUP CO., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

593 F. Supp. 470

Kay HOWARD, Plaintiff, v. CAMPBELL SOUP CO., Defendant.

No. 79 C 4169.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, E.D.

September 30, 1983.

Terry Yale Feiertag, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.

Theophil Kammholz, Vedder, Price, Kaufman & Kammholz, Chicago, Ill., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

GETZENDANNER, District Judge:

This employment discrimination case under 29 U.S.C. § 206(d) ("Equal Pay Act") and 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2 ("Title VII") is before the court on a motion for reconsideration of an order denying the motion for partial summary judgment of defendant Campbell Soup Company ("Campbell"). The previously denied motion for partial summary judgment presented evidence on the jobs to which plaintiff Kay Howard is comparing her job in claiming salary discrimination ("comparison jobs"). In that motion, Campbell argued that the evidence showed the comparison jobs to be so dissimilar to Howard's job as to defeat her claim of salary discrimination under Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. Judge Leighton, who heard the motion, denied it on February 11, 1983, explaining that the written job descriptions provided by Campbell were inadequate to determine the comparability of management level jobs. He held that the determination of comparability could be better performed with the help of expert testimony, cross-examination, and other trial aids.

In this motion for partial summary judgment, Campbell claims to have discovered that at trial, Howard will compare her job only with the eight comparison jobs at issue in Campbell's previous motion for partial summary judgment. Therefore, Campbell explains, no evidence that is not now before the court will be presented at trial, rendering partial summary judgment appropriate at this stage. The "undisputed facts" in the affidavits and depositions now possessed by the court, Campbell argues, demonstrate that Howard's job and the comparison jobs are so unequal as to show clearly that Title VII and the Equal Pay Act have not been violated. Campbell also argues that an "absence of any claim of sex segregation in Defendant's classification of jobs establish that Defendant has not violated Title VII under any of the valid standards applicable to a Title VII salary discrimination claim." Defendant's Motion to Reconsider p. 4.¹

The facts concerning the content of Howard's job are not, however, undisputed. The court will therefore accept, for purposes of this motion, Howard's broader version of her employment duties. According to that version, Howard has occupied the job of Supervisor, Employee Benefits and Cafeteria, from March 1976² to the present. This position is classified as grade 18 (grade level determining the salary range of the job).

On August 1, 1976, an opening in the job of Manager, Personnel Services (grade 22) was filled by Dan Drake, a male who Howard claims was less qualified for the job than she. Upon Drake's assuming this job (which Howard had held from November 1972 to May 1975), its duties were sharply curtailed. Howard explains that in her lower grade position of Manager, Employee Benefits and Cafeteria, she inherited many of these duties. In addition, Howard states that she performed some of the remaining duties of Manager, Personnel Services, because of Drake's inexperience. Though doing this extra work of the grade 22 level, she remained at her grade 18 level.

Howard describes the salary discrimination claims at issue here in her memorandum in opposition to the motion to reconsider:

1. The salary that Howard received for the actual jobs she performed was discriminatorily set lower than it would have been for a male.

2. The grade level for the job that Howard actually performed was discriminatorily set lower than it would have been for a male.

See Plaintiff's Memo in Opposition to Motion to Reconsider pp. 3-4.

Campbell repeatedly interprets Howard's salary discrimination claims as alleging that the salary grade system itself is discriminatory. Howard's explanation of her action clearly shows that she is claiming the actual job she performed, including the extra duties assigned her because of her sex, received a lower salary and salary grade than other males performing those duties would have or are receiving. In other words, her formal job description may indeed merit its current salary and grade level, but the job content makes it equal to other managerial jobs filled by males and mandating higher pay. It is Howard's actual job, and not her formal job description, for which she claims receiving a discriminatorily low salary and salary grade.³

The Howard and comparison jobs are management positions. Campbell, in its motion to reconsider, has referred to numerous affidavits by company personnel describing the comparison jobs and comparing them with Howard's. Campbell concludes that with respect to Howard's job, the comparison jobs each entail greater skill, responsibility, and effort, and are performed under different working conditions. 29 U.S.C. § 206(d)(1).

Howard's and Campbell's evidence on the duties of Supervisor, Employee Benefits and Cafeteria, conflict. The court cannot resolve this factual dispute but will accept for purposes of this motion the broader description provided by Howard. If Howard's explanation of her actual duties reveals that they require different working conditions, skill, effort, or responsibility, then Campbell's motion for partial summary judgment must be granted. If Howard's job, as detailed in her disputed evidence, may by law be "substantially equal" to the comparison jobs, partial summary judgment must be denied.

Under the Equal Pay Act, the plaintiff must compare her salary with the salary obtained by a male in a job "substantially equal" to her own. Shultz v. Wheaton Glass Co., 421 F.2d 259 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 398 U.S. 905, 90 S.Ct. 1696, 26 L.Ed.2d 64 (1970). See also Brennan v. Prince William Hospital Corp., 503 F.2d 282, 285 (4th Cir.1974) ("significant variations in skill, effort and responsibility" render jobs unequal). Whether two jobs entail equal work must be decided on a case-by-case basis. Hodgson v. Golden Isles Convalescent Homes, Inc., 468 F.2d 1256, 1258 (5th Cir.1972) (per curiam). In making this decision, the court must evaluate each job as a whole, taking into account the Equal Pay Act's broad remedial purpose. EEOC v. Universal Underwriters Insurance Co., 653 F.2d 1243, 1245 (8th Cir.1981). E.g., Thompson v. Sawyer, 678 F.2d 257, 272-274 & n. 13 (D.C.Cir.1982) (discussing Equal Pay Act cases concerning males and females doing similar work but using different machines); Ridgway v. United Hospitals-Miller Division, 563 F.2d 923, 926 (8th Cir.1977) (district court found urology assistant and ophthalmology technician, both entailing "surgical assistance," to be equal for Equal Pay Act purposes).

To demonstrate that her job is substantially equal to the higher paid job, a plaintiff must show that her lower paid job actually entailed equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and similar working conditions. Inequalities in any one of these areas render the jobs unequal for Equal Pay Act purposes. 29 C.F.R. § 800.125.

Skill has been tested with reference to the amount of experience, education, and training required for a job. Tuma v. American Can Co., 373 F.Supp. 218, 228 (D.N.J.1974) (male job required additional 3,000 hours of training); Pozorski v. Allen-Bradley Co., 377 F.Supp. 1288, 1289 (E.D. Wis.1974) (jobs found substantially equal required no difference in "educational or intellectual capacity"). When training may be accomplished in a short time, as when an employee learns by doing, legally significant skill differentials have not been found. Hodgson v. Miller Brewing Co., 457 F.2d 221 (7th Cir.1972). Inequality has been found, however, when the male's job entailed more complex tasks, Dunlop v. General Electric Co., 401 F.Supp. 1353, 1360-1361 (W.D.Va.1975), or required creating a program as opposed to simply administering an ongoing program. Calage v. University of Tennessee, 544 F.2d 297, 300 (6th Cir.1976).

The levels of skill required need not be utilized in the same amounts as between jobs. 29 C.F.R. § 800.125. Moreover, one job may entail work that another job never requires and substantial inequality may still be found if the bulk of both jobs' duties require equal skill. Lanegan-Grimm v. Library Association of Portland, 560 F.Supp. 486, 493 (D.Or.1983); 29 C.F.R. § 800.126. When both sexes perform many of the same duties, with the female performing extra duties requiring greater skills, these extra duties will not remove the jobs from Equal Pay Act protections. Usery v. Allegheny County Institution District, 544 F.2d 148, 152-3 (3d Cir.1976); Lanegan-Grimm, 560 F.Supp. at 491. Consistent with this principle, when the male's job involves extra duties, those duties must have an economic value commensurate with the higher pay the males command. Hodgson v. Behren's Drug Co., 475 F.2d 1041, 1050 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 822, 94 S.Ct. 121, 38 L.Ed.2d 55 (1973). Usery v. Board of Education, 462 F.Supp. 535 (D.Md.1978). In Grove v. Frostburg National Bank, 549 F.Supp. 922, 933-34 (E.D.Mich.1982), the court applied these rules and found substantial equality between male and female jobs, notwithstanding a showing that the jobs exhibited variations in several tasks.

It is clear from these few cases that the affidavit and deposition testimony now available to the court is inadequate to determine as a matter of law that Howard's position entailed lesser or different skills than did the comparison jobs. Howard's supervisory skills have included scheduling, teaching, and overseeing crews and supervised employees, knowing about the plant's benefit plans and related legal issues, understanding the technical aspects of running a cafeteria, participating in union grievance procedures, dealing with outside suppliers, insurance carriers, union officials and...