Disparate treatment occurs when individuals who are members of a protected class are treated differently than others by an employer. The term disparate treatment has been defined by courts in varying manners. For example, in Monson v. Rochester Athletic Club, the court noted that “in ‘disparate treatment’ discrimination, the employer simply treats some people less favorably than others because of their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin”. In DeJung v. Superior Court, the court defined disparate treatment as “intentional discrimination on prohibited grounds.”
The principal inquiry of a disparate treatment case is whether the plaintiff was subjected to different treatment because of his or her protected status. The First Circuit in Kosereis v. Rhode Island, 331 F.3d 207, noted that to successfully allege disparate treatment, an employee must show that “others similarly situated to him in all relevant respects were treated differently by employer; examples of disparate treatment need not be perfect replicas, but they must closely resemble one another in respect to relevant facts and circumstances.”
[Last updated in October of 2022 by the Wex Definitions Team]