The plaintiff, a female computer programmer, was hired as a Data Analyst with a salary of $46,000 per year. She had a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and nearly 7 years of programmer experience. She consistently received excellent performance appraisals and was known as an expert on a particular system used by the company. Over the course of her tenure at the company, she received several small pay increases. Her pay was consistently set at the lower end of the pay range for her pay grade. She was being paid $51,709 at the time of her departure from the company in 2005. Leipold, a male employee with 9 years of programming experience but no college degree was hired at a salary of $60,000 and earned $78,622 when he left the company in 2004. Crosley, another male employee hired in at $68,500 and this increased to $73,733 during the time when he worked together with the plaintiff. Although these three employees held various job titles over the course of their tenures in this company, they performed the same basic programmer analyst duties for the last few years of the plaintiff’s employment.

1. What were the legal issues in this case? What did the court decide?

2. What was the basis for the court’s conclusion that the plaintiff and her two male comparators engaged in equal work?

3. What factor other than sex is cited by the employer? Why is it not sufficient to avoid a trial?

4. What should the employer have done differently?