Basting v. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District

Background

In 2019, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, referred to in the opinion as BART, commissioned a study of employee classifications and compensation. The study recommended raising salaries to the midpoint of their pay bands for non-represented employees who had at least two years of service in their classifications and whose salaries were below the midpoint. BART applied that recommendation to employees who met those conditions as of June 30, 2019.

Karen Basting became BART’s Manager of Customer Service on January 19, 2018. The study later reclassified her as Director of Customer Service within the Office of External Affairs. She had been in her classification for about 18 months as of June 30, 2019, so BART did not raise her salary to the midpoint. Basting later reached two years in the classification and asked again for an increase, but BART told her it would not make adjustments on a rolling basis after the study’s implementation.

The Office of External Affairs had three other directors: Aaron Weinstein, Roddrick Lee, and Alicia Troost. The two male directors and the other female director received increases because they had been in their classifications for at least two years as of the cutoff date. Basting alleged that BART’s refusal to increase her salary violated the federal Equal Pay Act, the California Equal Pay Act, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She agreed to drop her state-law retaliation claim, so the court considered only the equal-pay and Title VII claims.

Federal Equal Pay Act claims

The federal Equal Pay Act prohibits an employer from paying different wages based on sex for substantially equal work. Even if Basting could show that her position and the other directors’ positions were equal for purposes of the statute, BART could avoid liability by proving that the pay difference resulted from a permissible factor other than sex.

The court found that BART’s two-year rule was such a factor. BART said the rule was applied uniformly to all non-represented employees who met the criteria, regardless of gender. The court also found that the rule was related to the job because BART used two years as a measure of when an employee would generally become proficient in the classification. The court stated that Basting did not dispute that BART consistently relied on the rule for the relevant non-represented employees.

Basting pointed to evidence that BART had negotiated increases with some employees who did not meet the cutoff. The court found that those employees were part of a union and were not subject to the study, so that evidence did not create a material factual dispute about the rule’s application to non-represented employees. The court also rejected Basting’s argument that BART had given shifting reasons for the pay difference, explaining that arguments about whether the jobs were equal and arguments about BART’s affirmative defense addressed different parts of the Equal Pay Act analysis.

Because BART provided a factually supported, gender-neutral reason for the pay difference and Basting did not provide meaningful evidence that the rule was a pretext for gender discrimination, the court granted summary judgment on the federal Equal Pay Act claims. The court did not need to resolve whether Basting’s position was equal to the other directors’ positions.

California Equal Pay Act claims

The court reached the same result under California’s Equal Pay Act. It held that BART’s two-year rule was a bona fide factor that was not based on sex, was related to the job, and was consistent with a business necessity. The court noted that a female director who met the cutoff received a pay increase, which supported the conclusion that the rule was not sex-based. Basting did not provide record evidence calling BART’s stated reason into question.

Title VII discrimination claim

Under Title VII, an employee may prove discrimination through direct evidence or under the burden-shifting framework established in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green. Under that framework, the employee must first provide evidence supporting an inference of discrimination. The employer then must identify a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its action, after which the employee may attempt to show that reason was pretextual—a cover for discrimination.

BART identified Basting’s failure to meet the two-year cutoff as its legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for not raising her salary. Basting argued that BART had negotiated with some employees but not with her, including after she made multiple requests. The court found that this conclusory assertion did not show that BART gave midpoint increases to non-represented male employees who had been in their roles for less than two years. It therefore did not provide enough evidence for a fact finder to infer discriminatory intent.

Disposition

The court granted BART’s motion for summary judgment. The ruling addressed Basting’s federal and California Equal Pay Act claims and her Title VII discrimination claim. The opinion states that Basting had agreed to drop her retaliation claim.