“[O]nce a plaintiff has established a prima facie case under the Equal Pay Act, is an agency’s reliance on prior salary alone sufficient to carry its burden of establishing as an affirmative defense that the pay differential between the plaintiff and her comparator is justified by an ‘other factor other than sex,’ where the relevant statutory and regulatory scheme does not require the Agency to rely on prior salary alone?”
“We conclude that the EPA applies equally to the United States as to other employers and that mere reliance on prior compensation standing alone is not an affirmative defense to a prima facie case under the EPA, unless the employer can demonstrate that the prior pay itself was not based on sex.”
