Case Citator › Colby v. J.C. Penney Co.

Colby v. J.C. Penney Co.

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Declined by some courts
Court
Seventh Circuit
Citation
811 F.2d 1119
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
47 of 47
Citing cases (total)
47
Treatment dates
1988
Declined by some courts
At least one reviewed court has declined to follow this case. No reviewed court has overruled it. Colby's rule about the weight of another district court's decision remains intact, but the Sixth Circuit declined to follow its separate suggestion about wage discrimination. All 47 flagged citations have been read.
More on how this was screened

The Sixth Circuit agreed that Title VII permits disparate impact claims under section 703(a)(1), yet rejected Colby's dictum suggesting that the Bennett Amendment categorically bars such claims concerning compensation. That narrow disagreement is listed below.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

47 later cases cite Colby v. J.C. Penney Co.; 47 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Colby v. J.C. Penney Co.?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Declined to follow

  • The Sixth Circuit rejected Colby's dictum that the Bennett Amendment bars every disparate impact claim concerning wages; it required a legitimate business reason for a wage factor other than sex.

    Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. J.C. Penney Co., Inc. · Sixth Circuit · filed

    Penney contends that the Bennett Amendment precludes any claim of wage discrimination based on disparate impact, arguing that the Equal Pay Act allows a wage differential if it is based on any factor other than sex, so that a claim of discrimination based on the disparate impact resulting from the use of this factor would automatically be barred. The Seventh Circuit has accepted this argument in dicta. Colby, 811 F.2d at 1127; American Nurses’ Association v. Illinois, 783 F.2d 716, 723 (7th Cir.1986). In our circuit, however, the Bennett Amendment cannot constitute a blanket bar to all claims of wage discrimination based on disparate impact because the “factor other than sex” defense does not include literally any other factor, but a factor that, at a minimum, was adopted for a legitimate business reason.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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