UW salary lawsuit may become class action today

Superior Court proceedings today will determine whether thousands of UW faculty members can be included as plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought against the UW last October.

The suit, filed by Duane Storti, an associate professor in the college of engineering, alleges the UW failed to provide meritorious faculty with a mandatory 2-percent pay increase in the 2002-03 academic year.

If granted, today's motion for class clarification would turn the case into a class-action lawsuit.

UW attorneys were unavailable for comment yesterday, but a court document filed Jan. 14 by the UW claimed the faculty salary policy did not mandate administrators to recommend, or the Board of Regents to provide, merit-based salary increases.

In the same document, the UW called Storti "antagonistic to [the] elected leadership of the class that he seeks to represent" and called for a court rejection of the class certification because Storti is not an elected faculty representative.

Storti will continue as the sole plaintiff if today's motion is denied, but to his legal team, class action standing is crucial to the case.

"[The only way] to carry out the intent of the policy is if it was on behalf of all faculty," said Stephen Strong, a lead attorney for Storti.

Strong said the class would include 98 percent of the UW's meritorious faculty, a number he estimates at "a couple thousand." Individual class members have not been identified, he said.

In 2000, 2001 and 2003, faculty members who scored high enough on annual performance reviews received a 2-percent bonus at the start of the school year. Faculty paychecks received no increase during the 2002-03 year.

Storti's team alleged UW faculty members have been denied $4.5 million per year in merit-based pay raises mandated by Executive Order No. 64 of the University handbook.

"If the [class of] plaintiffs prevails, there will be some investigation and discovery into how to apply [the monetary results] to the people in the class," Strong said, adding that salary differences between faculty members may lead to awards of various sizes.

According to a court document Strong filed on Dec. 30, each class member's claim "averages probably at most a few thousand dollars." A faculty member with an $80,000 salary would have lost $1,600 in 2002-03, and slightly more during the next two years, for a total of about $5,000.

Strong, who predicted a court decision before the year ends, said he will likely file a motion for summary judgment, asking the judge to decide the case rather than proceeding to trial. He said the evidence -- UW documents and administrative e-mails -- were not likely to be disputed if the case did not go to trial.

Oral arguments presided by Superior Court Judge Mary Yu begin at 10:30 a.m. at the Seattle University Law School.