## Facts

- Homemakers, Inc. employed domestic and home-care workers, including both female and male employees.
- California Labor Code §§ 1350 and 1350.5 and related Industrial Welfare Commission orders set maximum hours and required premium overtime pay for covered women employees, reflecting a statutory policy of special protection for women workers.
- Homemakers sought declaratory and injunctive relief to stop state agencies from enforcing these women-only overtime provisions, arguing enforcement would force sex-based disparities in compensation and thus violate Title VII.
- State enforcement agencies argued there was no conflict with Title VII because the employer could comply with both regimes by paying the same premium overtime benefits to men as well.
- The district court declared the women-only overtime provisions invalid as conflicting with Title VII and held that Homemakers’ noncompliance with those provisions did not constitute a Title VII unlawful employment practice.
- The state agencies appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether California’s women-only premium overtime provisions and related orders conflicted with and were superseded by Title VII, rendering them unenforceable against an employer covered by Title VII.
2. Whether an employer’s refusal to comply with a state law that mandates sex-based premium overtime for women only can itself constitute an unlawful employment practice under Title VII.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court.
- The court held the women-only premium overtime provisions conflicted with and were superseded by Title VII and therefore could not be enforced against the employer.
- The court held Homemakers’ noncompliance with the invalid state provisions did not constitute an unlawful employment practice under Title VII.
- The court rejected the proposed remedy of construing the statutes as automatically extending women-only benefits to men, concluding that such an expansion of beneficiaries was a legislative choice for the state, not a federal judicial or administrative revision.

## Legal Principles

- Title VII precludes enforcement of state labor standards that require sex-based differences in compensation or working conditions by granting premium pay to one sex only.
- When a state statute mandates sex-based differential treatment, it is superseded to the extent of its conflict with Title VII and is unenforceable against covered employers.
- Federal courts and the EEOC cannot cure a conflict between state law and Title VII by effectively rewriting state substantive law to materially expand the class of statutory beneficiaries; that change must come from the state legislature.
- An employer cannot incur Title VII liability merely by refusing to follow a state requirement that itself compels sex discrimination.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that California’s women-only overtime premium requirements conflicted with Title VII and could not be enforced against the employer, and it further held that the employer’s noncompliance with those discriminatory state provisions did not itself violate Title VII.


Homemakers, Inc. v. Div. of Indus. Welfare, 509 F.2d 20 (9th Cir. 1974)