Plastics Company Worker’s Sex, Pay Bias Claims Revived on Appeal

Clariant Plastics & Coatings USA Inc. must face trial on a warehouse clerk’s claims that she was paid less than male employees and laid off because she’s a woman, the Sixth Circuit ruled.

A jury could conclude a male colleague’s production management experience didn’t “set him apart from” her in determining which warehouse department employee to include in the workforce reduction, a unanimous panel said in overturning a lower court. And evidence of her superior qualifications and the “climate of pervasive sexual harassment” she faced would permit a finding that she was “singled out for impermissible reasons,” the panel said. ...