Jones Day's Atlanta headquarters. Photo: John Disney/ALM

Fresh off its defeat over a key discovery matter in an adverse $200 million gender discrimination lawsuit, Jones Day is calling for the dismissal of the remaining equal pay claims in the case.

In a motion filed Monday, Jones Day argued that discovery conducted so far in the lawsuit being waged by six former female associates has undermined the claims they have made under the Equal Pay Act. As a result, there's no need for the judge to grant the plaintiffs' request for an EPA conditional certification that would cover every woman Jones Day has employed since 2016, the firm continued.

"If the named plaintiffs have no viable claims under the EPA—as the undisputed facts establish—then there is certainly no occasion to certify a collective," the law firm wrote in its filing.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss of the District of Columbia on Tuesday scheduled a phone conference on Jones Day's motion—and the plaintiffs' response to it—for July 21.

Jones Day's latest filing hinges on specific issues with three of the plaintiffs who still have EPA claims pending against the firm. For instance, plaintiff Katrina Henderson's claim cannot be sustained because she was terminated in 2015 and only kept on payroll while she looked for jobs, the firm said. She cannot say a male counterpart was paid more for "substantially equal work" because she did no work in 2016, the firm continued.

Meanwhile, plaintiff Saira Draper did work in 2016, but not as many hours as her male counterparts, the firm alleged. And plaintiff Meredith Williams was paid more than her male colleagues, Jones Day continued.

Russell Kornblith, the New York managing partner of Sanford Heisler Sharp and one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, hit back against Jones Day's filing in a statement.

"Jones Day's lengthy court filings are conspicuous for what they do not say: Jones Day does not dispute that it pays female associates less than men. The firm instead seeks to justify gender-based disparities," Kornblith said.

In an interview, Kornblith said the conditional certification Jones Day is seeking to nullify has a low bar to clear. Moss' ruling on this motion wouldn't affect the class certification the plaintiffs are seeking for their Title VII claims—that issue won't be argued until January 2021.

David Sanford, the chairman and co-founder of Sanford Heisler Sharp, said he believes his firm has perhaps filed more of these EPA conditional confirmations "in the recent past than any other law firm in the U.S."

Jones Day's motion comes days after Moss ordered the firm to provide the plaintiffs—Nilab Rahyar Tolton, Andrea Mazingo, Jaclyn Stahl, Williams, Draper and Henderson—with salary information about every associate nationwide from 2012 to 2018.

A spokesman for Jones Day did not respond to requests for comment.

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