A California judge ruled that Apple must face a major gender discrimination lawsuit that began with a tax form left on an office printer.

Justina Jong and Amina Salgado are two longtime Apple employees. Jong said she saw her male colleague’s tax form on an office printer in California in 2019 that showed he earned $10,000 more than she did for an equivalent role. Following the discovery, Jong and Salgado became co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Apple filed in San Francisco County Superior Court. The lawsuit claims that over 12,000 women in the company’s engineering, marketing, and warranty departments are victims of gender discrimination in the workplace.

According to the lawsuit, “Apple also has a policy or practice of selecting individuals who have ‘talent’ and compensating those persons more highly than other employees.” This practice is biased against women, argued the plaintiffs, because, “among persons with similar levels of talent, more men are identified as having talent.” As a result, plaintiffs said, women are disparately affected which causes them to be paid less for the same jobs.

Plaintiffs also alleged that Apple has a policy of asking applicants to provide information about their prior pay, despite the practice resulting in pay disparities. They also said that Apple’s entire performance evaluation system is flawed in that when it comes to categories such as teamwork and leadership, “men are rewarded and women are penalized for the same behaviors.” Evaluation scores then become the basis for compensation, which in turn, has a negative effect on women’s salaries.