The following summary is based on an opinion of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire. Federal district court cases apply federal law and sometimes New Hampshire law. Their interpretations of New Hampshire law are not binding on the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
This case involved potential employment discrimination liability on the part of the City because of its relationship with the local cable channel. An employee of the Manchester Public Television Service (MPTS) sued MPTS and the City of Manchester under state and federal laws for gender discrimination in hiring and compensation, alleging that a male colleague was illegally promoted and paid more because he was a man. The City asked the Court to dismiss the claims against it because the plaintiff was an employee of MPTS, not the City. In this opinion, the Court held the City could be liable along with MPTS because they were an “integrated enterprise.” (Note that the case is ongoing at this time, and the ultimate issues of liability have not yet been resolved. The Manchester School District was also a defendant but was dismissed from the case because it was not the employer at the time of the alleged discrimination.)
The Court was asked at this stage of the case whether or not the plaintiff could go to trial against both the City and MPTS. Each of the laws the plaintiff sued under prohibited discriminatory actions by an employer against its employees. While MPTS was the “employer,” the plaintiff argued that the City was acting along with MPTS in the discriminatory conduct. In interpreting the term “employer” as it appears in federal employment statutes, courts have developed the “single employer” doctrine, under which two nominally separate entities “may be so interrelated that they constitute a single employer subject to liability.” In the First Circuit (the federal circuit including New Hampshire), several tests have been used to decide whether two organizations are a single employer. In this case, the Court applied the “integrated-enterprise” test.
Under this test, the following factors are considered: (1) common management; (2) interrelation between operations; (3) centralized control over labor relations; (4) common ownership. It is not necessary to show all four factors, and special emphasis should be placed on the control of employment decisions. In this case, the City controlled MPTS’s funding. City employees were responsible for MPTS’s management, and the City’s Finance Department and Board of Mayor and Aldermen managed MPTS’s daily financial operations. In addition, the City itself established MPTS’s board of directors. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, the City’s Mayor and Aldermen decided the employment positions the plaintiff and her male colleague would hold and the salary and benefits they would receive. Taken together, the Court found there was enough evidence to show the City and MPTS were acting as a single employer, and thus the City was required to remain in the case.