Jones Day Defeats Last Equal Pay Claim in One-Time Class Suit

The last remaining Jones Day female attorney who sued the firm for allegedly denying her and other women lawyers equal pay based on their sex failed to show she performed work that primarily benefited the firm during the period at issue, a federal judge in Washington ruled.

Katrina Henderson’s Equal Pay Act claim was limited to the period after June 24, 2016, under the 1963 law’s statute of limitations, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said Wednesday.

Henderson, who was told in December 2015 that she was being terminated, literally performed no work for Jones Day between June 24, 2016, and July 15, 2016, when her employment formally ended, the court said.

She was kept on the firm’s payroll between when she was fired and June 24, 2016. During that period, she looked for another job and was placed on unpaid leave for her last few weeks while she talked to a prospective new employer, the court said. That meant she recorded zero billable or pro bono hours for all of 2016, it said.

Henderson’s looking for a job isn’t the sort of “work” covered by the Equal Pay Act because it primarily benefited her, not the firm, Judge Randolph D. Moss said.

Henderson and some of her former co-plaintiffs in the one-time proposed class pay discrimination case said Jones Day told them paying fired lawyers while they hunted for new jobs also benefited the firm because it’s sometimes able to get outgoing associates hired by firm clients and the firm’s generosity also helps with associate recruitment.

But that wasn’t enough to overcome the testimony of the Jones Day partner in charge of the associate evaluation process who said the firm pays fired lawyers while they seek new jobs because it doesn’t like to force people out the door or cause families to miss making mortgage payments, the court said.

That Henderson was initially granted a shorter period to find new work but had it extended at her request also belied her claim that the arrangement wasn’t primarily for her benefit, the judge said.

Henderson also failed to identify similarly situated male associates in Jones Day’s New York office who were treated better, the court said.

The decision leaves just three claims, all by Henderson, remaining in the case—disparate treatment and hostile work environment claims under the New York City Human Rights Law and a race discrimination claim under 42 U.S.C. §1981.

The class allegations were dropped by Henderson and her five former co-plaintiffs Dec. 14 after they informed the court that their review of nationwide job evaluation and compensation data produced by the firm revealed insufficient proof of classwide pay or disparate impact bias.

The five other women then told the judge March 11 that they were voluntarily dismissing their remaining claims. Whether that involved any sort of a settlement is unknown.

Sanford Heisler Sharp LLP represents Henderson. Jones Day represents itself.

The case is Henderson v. Jones Day, 2021 BL 118498, D.D.C., No. 1:19-cv-00945, 3/31/21.