An age and sex discrimination lawsuit in which a Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas judicial staff attorney claimed she was not paid fairly has been thrown out by a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge C. Darnell Jones II of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed plaintiff Shelley R. Goldner's claims by granting summary judgment in favor of Montgomery County. However, Jones gave Goldner the opportunity to refine her complaint and refile.

Goldner, who worked for Judge Lois Murphy and had “decades of legal experience,” claimed she was owed back wages because she was misclassified as a law clerk instead of a staff attorney at the outset of her employment—the difference between staff attorneys and law clerks is defined by years of legal experience, with the former being paid more.

According to Jones' opinion, the pay discrepancy was found by Murphy, who served on the court's budget committee, shortly after the court hired a male lawyer who was misclassified, one year after Goldner started. Until then, Goldner was not aware of the error.

Goldner petitioned the court administration for back pay and benefits, which was approved by President Judge William Furber, according to Jones. Goldner was informed that all the paperwork had been completed and submitted, but was later told in December 2015 that her back pay and benefits request had been denied without ever being submitted to the salary board.

She claimed that the denial was based on age and sex discrimination, and that her younger male colleagues were paid more for equal experience. Goldner filed suit under multiple civil rights and employment statutes: the Equal Pay Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act.

However, Jones said that Goldner failed to state a claim under any of them.

Responding to the EPA claim, Jones said that the county did not intentionally misclassify Goldner because she is a woman—it also made the same mistake with her male colleague.

In tossing the Title VII claim, which prohibits formulating a salary based on sex, Jones said, “The difference in starting salary appears to be attributed to the mistake in job classification, not sex discrimination. Plaintiff does not convince this court otherwise, therefore, plaintiff has failed to establish a prima facie case of sex discrimination under Title VII.”

As for the ADEA claim, Jones said Goldner was required to prove that she was ultimately replaced by a younger employee.

“However, plaintiff was not replaced by a younger employee, nor does plaintiff plead facts that would give rise to a reasonable inference that her salary decision was based on age discrimination,” Jones said. “In fact, plaintiff's pleadings lead this court to reasonably conclude that plaintiff and the younger comparator received similar treatment because both were initially misclassified by defendant.”

Jones said the PHRA claim followed the same legal framework as the other statutes, and therefore was denied.

Sharon Lopez of Triquetra Law in Lancaster represents Goldner and declined to comment.

Montgomery County Assistant City Solicitor Maureen Calder represented the county in the case.

In a statement to The Legal, Montgomery County Solicitor Shelley Smith said, “Montgomery County has a number of procedures in place to prevent age and sex discrimination, as well as discrimination against any protected class. We are happy the courts agreed that those procedures are working.”