Wernsing v. Department of Human Services

The Illinois Department of Human Services (defendant) set lateral entrants' starting pay by giving them a percentage raise over their prior salary, within the position's pay scale; Wernsing (plaintiff), a lower-paid new hire, received a smaller resulting salary than a male colleague performing the same work whose higher prior salary yielded a higher starting pay under the same percentage-raise formula. Wernsing sued under the Equal Pay Act; the district court ruled for the Department, and she appealed.

Whether a system of setting new employees' pay based on their prior wages necessarily violates the Equal Pay Act when it produces pay disparities between men and women performing equal work.