Court: Employers can pay women less based on past salaries

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Employers can legally pay women less than men for the same work based on differences in the workers' previous salaries, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower-court ruling saying pay differences based exclusively on prior salaries were discriminatory under the federal Equal Pay Act.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit cited a 1982 ruling by the court that said employers could use previous salary information as long as they applied it reasonably and had a business policy that justified it.