Supreme Court Vacates Pay Equity Case

A court decision prohibiting employers from paying women less because of their compensation history mirrored in several state laws has been overturned on a technicality. The Supreme Court vacated Rizo v. Yovino, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that a person's previous compensation may not be used to justify gender pay disparity. In its Feb. 25 decision, the Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of the case, but vacated the decision because the circuit court counted the vote of a judge who agreed with and wrote the 9th Circuit's ruling—but died before the appeals court's final decision was issued. Without that judge's vote, the 9th Circuit did not have a majority of judges to reach its holding.  "Federal judges are appointed for life, not for eternity," the Supreme Court stated.