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Is an employee with managerial duties “similarly situated” to a manager?
Maybe it’s the luck of the draw, but most of the discrimination cases I defend are hostile work environment cases, where an alleged harasser supposedly has made an employee-victim’s life miserable with certain comments, jokes, gestures, touchings, you name it.
Far less often do I encounter disparate-treatment claims. A disparate-treatment claim is one where an employee claims that another similarly-situated employee in another class was treated more favorably because of his/her protected class. For example, a female employee claims that similarly-situated male employees are paid more because they are men.
Sounds like the facts of a recent case decided right in my backyard in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. This case provides a great opportunity to go back to school on what it means to be similarly-situated…after the jump…
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