Vehar v. Cole National Group

The case revolved around sex discrimination. The court had to determine whether the
actions of Cole National Group amounted to sex discrimination against the provisions of the law.
The plaintiff in the case, Wendy Vehar, had moved to an appellate court to appeal a decision by
the district court. She had alleged that she was discriminated against by her employer on the
basis of her gender. Vehar had been working as a data analyst and was earning a salary of 46,000
dollars (Walsh, 2016). She had a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of
Toledo. She had been a programmer for six years. When she was hired, she had consented to the
Cole employee handbook that explained the sexual harassment policy. In June 2002, Vehar
received a job transfer with her job title changing from data analyst to programmer II. Vehar
alleged that she was hired as a programmer analyst but was instead offered a lower position of
Programmer II. In 2004, Vehar complained that she was underpaid compared to her male
coworkers. ‘
In establishing a prima facie case of sexual discrimination, an employee must
demonstrate that an employer pays different wages to employees drawn from different sexes.
Jobs that require equal skills, effort, and responsibility must have equal wages. The EPA must
then evaluate on a case by case basis whether two employees perform similar responsibilities.
Both Vehar and Crosley and Leipold performed similar responsibilities, and thus Vehar had
established a prima facia case against sexual discrimination (Walsh, 2016). The three had similar
responsibilities and wherein certain instances required collaboration. Vehar was, however, paid
lesser compared to her work responsibilities.

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When a prima facie case is established by the plaintiff, the burden of proof shifts to the
defendant; the defendant must thus justify why a pay discrepancy exists. In this case, the
defendants attempted to justify the pay discrepancy by stating that it could be attributed to
experience. However, the court failed to agree with the defendants and stated that the plaintiff
had the experience that made her entitled to equal pay with others performing similar duties. The
court also argued that Vehar’s educational background was not factored in when designing the
pay system (Walsh, 2016). The employers should have thus given all employees performing
similar roles equal pay.

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References

Walsh, D. J. (2016). Employment law for human resource practice (5th ed.). Boston, MA:
Cengage Learning.