Davis v. Inmar, Inc.

Background

Inmar moved for summary judgment on the remaining claims. Summary judgment is judgment without a trial and is appropriate only when there is no genuine dispute about a fact that could affect the outcome and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law.

Gender Discrimination

The plaintiffs claimed that Inmar terminated them because of their gender, paid Davis less than similarly situated male employees, and assigned them job titles below their former titles and work levels. The court said the parties did not dispute that the plaintiffs had established the initial showing required for their discrimination claims.

Inmar offered allegedly legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons, including company policies for compensation and job titles and a reduction-in-force plan. The court found factual disputes because Inmar provided individual counterexamples rather than documentation of a generally applicable, gender-neutral policy. The court also noted that the reduction-in-force plan did not include the plaintiffs’ roles and that other evidence raised questions about discriminatory intent. The gender-discrimination claims therefore will go to trial.

Retaliation and Other FEHA Claims

Davis and Rhodes claimed they were terminated after complaining about gender discrimination. Davis raised concerns with her supervisor in March and April 2020, and Kerr said she would be terminated on April 13, 2020. Rhodes raised concerns about being assigned a lower level and about Inmar’s male-dominated culture on February 17, 2020, and Kerr said she would be terminated on March 3, 2020.

Inmar argued that the plaintiffs had not shown Kerr personally knew about their communications. The court found that their supervisor, Black, was significantly involved in the terminations. It held that this evidence was enough for the retaliation claims to proceed to trial. Because the plaintiffs had also raised triable factual disputes on gender discrimination and retaliation, the court denied summary judgment on their related wrongful-termination and failure-to-prevent claims.

Pay Discrimination

Davis relied on comparators—other employees used for comparison—to oppose summary judgment on her unequal-pay claim. Inmar objected to one comparator and argued that Davis therefore had only one comparator. The court said that reliance on one comparator is not automatically fatal, although an insufficient number of comparators could weaken the claim.

The court found that the remaining comparator worked on the same product and in the same job-family group as Davis and shared several job duties with her. Whether employees are similarly situated is ordinarily a fact question, so the pay-discrimination claim will be decided by a jury rather than on summary judgment.

Fraud

The court found factual disputes about whether Davis and Rhodes were falsely told they would be promoted to vice-president positions. Inmar argued that this dispute did not matter because the plaintiffs later described themselves as vice presidents during their job searches. The court rejected that argument at the summary-judgment stage, reasoning that the plaintiffs might have declined the jobs or left Inmar earlier if they had known there would be no promotion.

Failure to Pay Wages

When the plaintiffs were terminated, Inmar paid their accrued vacation based on a salary reduced by 25 percent during the COVID-19 period rather than their regular salary. The court had previously stated that the claim turned on the meaning of the plaintiffs’ “final rate of pay.” Inmar asserted without supporting evidence that the reduced salary was the final rate. The plaintiffs pointed to evidence that the reduction was temporary and would last three months. The court found a factual dispute about whether the reduced salary should be included in the final rate used to calculate their accrued vacation pay.

Disposition

The court denied Inmar’s motion for summary judgment. It set a jury trial for April 21, 2025, at 9:00 a.m., and a pretrial conference for April 3, 2025, at 1:30 p.m. Judge James Donato signed the order.