Montana Adjunct Sues Employer Alleging Underpayment of Wages
A longtime adjunct professor at Carroll College is suing the school, saying it underpaid her for work by wrongly interpreting or ignoring its own payment policies and falsely telling her what she was due.
According to a complaint filed last week in District Court in Helena, Lorna Milne has been an adjunct faculty member since 1988, teaching composition, writing, literature and, currently, the first-year class known as the Alpha Seminar.
Adjunct professors are typically part-time faculty and are paid less than full-time professors. They are not tenure-track professors. Carroll has approximately 85 full-time professors and 70 adjuncts this semester.
The 12-page complaint (plus attached exhibits) filed by attorney Jonathan Motl says Milne learned in September 2010 of a professor with similar seniority being paid significantly more, and asked the college’s Human Resources department for an explanation.
Three months later, she received documentation of the pay criteria, and found that it incorrectly tallied her total experience with Carroll (which would have increased her pay) and then erroneously cut that figure in half, according to the complaint.
The result: She was paid $828 per credit-hour in fall 2010, but would have received $912 per credit-hour if the criteria were properly applied, the complaint says. The errors were carried forward since fall 2000, according to the complaint.
“(Human Resources) was not able to show Milne that the Criteria were fairly applied such that Milne (and all adjunct faculty) were being uniformly and fairly paid. Instead the opposite was demonstrated,” the complaint says. “In the end Milne was paid by administrative fiat without any assurance of fairness and equality.”
A Carroll spokeswoman said its attorneys will file its response in court, and had no further comment on the lawsuit.
The suit directly addresses only Milne’s situation, but Motl said the issues could potentially apply to other faculty. It does not specify a specific dollar amount Milne is seeking from Carroll, and does not seek punitive damages.
“It is a respectfully postured claim based on principle (more) than money,” Motl said.
Motl is not just Milne’s lawyer; he’s also her husband. He said spouses of lawyers are typically reluctant to get them involved in their legal issues.
“When it’s a matter of principle, though, you do,” he said. “And that is how Lorna views this.”
