[A] federal judge is allowing two counts of a wage discrimination lawsuit filed by a former deputy state’s attorney in Rutland County to go forward while dismissing others.
Jane C. O’Neill, who worked in the office from 2009 to 2014, says she was paid less than a male colleague in the same position and was denied overtime wages.
In August the Rutland County state’s attorney’s office and the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, arguing they are entitled to 11th Amendment immunity as “arms of the state.”
The 11th Amendment protects state agencies from being sued in federal court.
“Congress has decided generally we have immunity but not for that type of claim,” said Kate Gallagher, assistant attorney general.
Gallagher said her side was pleased with the ruling, which she described as “basic and straightforward.”
“The biggest concern was whether or not the office of state’s attorney should be considered a state entity at all,” said Gallagher. “That was really the important question.”
O’Neill’s attorneys argued, based on a recent Vermont Supreme Court decision, that state’s attorney’s offices could be considered municipal entities and therefore come under federal jurisdiction. But that decision dealt with collective bargaining issues under the Municipal Employee Relations Act and not questions of immunity under the 11th Amendment.
In general Reiss found the defendants’ arguments persuasive and concluded that both offices were political subdivisions of the state.
John Paul Faignant, an attorney representing the plaintiff, said the ruling establishes that the state can be held liable for violations of the Equal Pay Act.
“The most important part of the decision is that the state is held accountable to the same equal pay requirement as everybody else,” he said.
Though the judge said the defense had made a compelling argument to dismiss the civil conspiracy claim on the grounds that it is not authorized under the Equal Pay Act, she did not grant the motion to dismiss.
“At this nascent stage of the proceedings,” Reiss wrote, “the court declines to dismiss plaintiff’s civil conspiracy claim.”
In the lawsuit O’Neill says she made repeated inquiries about her pay, only to be rebuffed by her superiors. As she pressed her case the work environment became increasingly hostile, and O’Neill was forced to resign, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Burlington.
O’Neill is suing the Rutland County state’s attorney’s office and the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs for back wages and damages.
According to the lawsuit, the Rutland County state’s attorney at the time, Marc Brierre, refused to discuss the matter with O’Neill and “embarked on a course of retaliatory conduct to demean and marginalize” her. When O’Neill raised the issue with Bram Kranichfeld, then executive director of the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs, she received a similarly tepid response and was referred back to Brierre, the suit alleges. Kranichfeld is now chief deputy state’s attorney in Chittenden County, and Brierre lost his post in the 2014 election.
The complaint alleges that Kranichfeld and Brierre “purposely and intentionally paid less money to Ms. O’Neill than they did to John Doe, a male, based solely on the fact that Ms. O’Neill was a woman, who performed equal work that required skill, effort and responsibility, and was performed under substantially similar working conditions as John Doe, a male.”
Gallagher said the defendants would file a response to the decision soon and that both sides would then submit initial disclosures. According to Reiss, the claims dismissed in her ruling can be refiled in state court.
