Lawsuits Will Test Washington Pay Transparency Law

Author: Michael Cardman, HR & Compliance Center Senior Legal Editor

November 7, 2023

Several prominent companies - including a major international hotel chain, a home improvement retail corporation, a leading online food ordering and food delivery platform and a major retail furniture chain - as well as many smaller local businesses face class action lawsuits claiming their job postings failed to disclose pay information, as required by Washington State's new pay transparency law.

The law, which took effect January 1 of this year, requires employers with 15 or more employees to disclose in each posting for each job opening the wage scale or salary range and a general description of all the benefits and other compensation (such as insurance or retirement plans) for a specific available position to be offered to the hired applicant.

Unlike some other pay transparency laws, the Washington law provides job applicants and employees with a private of action rather than relying solely on a government agency for enforcement.

Violations can entitle applicants and employees to up to $5,000 per violation. Seeking class certification, the lawsuits against larger companies reviewed by HR & Compliance Center claim there are "potentially hundreds" of potential plaintiffs. (For a smaller company such as a local restaurant group, the lawsuit claims there are potentially dozens of affected individuals.)

The firm behind the lawsuits, Emery Reddy, says it has filed nearly three dozen lawsuits so far. Trial dates for many of these cases have been set for October 2024.

If the plaintiffs are successful, it's likely these Washington State lawsuits will inspire copycat lawsuits in other states and localities that have similar pay transparency laws.

Some observers say the lawsuits' success will depend on whether the plaintiffs can show they were actually harmed by the lack of pay information in the defendants' job postings. The lawsuits claim they were harmed by their "inability to evaluate the pay for the position, negotiate that pay, and compare that pay to other available positions in the marketplace."