Doctor loses equal pay claim at trial

This case was a huge win for the plaintiff on her discrimination claim, as the Court of Appeals reinstated the verdict in her favor after the trial court determined there was not enough evidence to show that her employer, NYU Langone Health System, had discriminated against her on the basis of gender. But the Court of Appeals also finds that plaintiff did not have enough evidence to win her equal pay claim.

The case is Edelman v. NYU Langone Health System, issued on June 18. Equal pay claims under federal law are difficult to prove: you have to show that a male worker earned more money, and that both of you performed work requiring equal skill, effort and responsibility, and that the jobs were performed under similar working conditions. The state law equal pay claim, for purposes of this case, has the same elements. Plaintiff said that Dr. Modi, a male rheumatologist, earned more money than she did. The Court of Appeals finds the jury had a basis to reject this claim, even if it did find that the hospital had discriminated against her in other ways. It looks like the jury split the baby.

First, a procedural issue: at trial, plaintiff did not move for judgment as a matter of law on this claim. Since she seeks JMOL now, therefore, she can only get around this waiver by showing the verdict was a manifest injustice, a burdensome proof standard. She cannot meet that test because, even if Dr. Modi were subject to the same working conditions, the record allowed the jury to find that they did not perform equal work as defined by federal and state law.

Why did the Court of Appeals (Merriam, Robinson and Walker) rule against plaintiff on this issue? Because (1) Dr. Modi had two more years' experience than plaintiff, and he had also demonstrated leadership skills, having previously served as Chief Rheumatologist for a multi-specialty group of 500 physicians, where he supervised six rheumatologists, (2) he had also previously served as a medical director, where he supervised 15 doctors and 12 other medical professionals; plaintiff did not have this experience, (3) Dr. Modi and plaintiff had different production targets, and Dr. Modi saw more patients per week than plaintiff did.

This evidentiary record shows that the verdict against plaintiff on her equal pay claim was not a manifest injustice. It sounds like plaintiff would have lost the appeal on this issue even without waiving any JMOL motion during trial, as the evidence, as least as described by the Court of Appeals seems like plaintiff and Dr. Modi had different professional backgrounds and work experiences at NYU Langone.