WASHINGTON The Supreme Court is leaving in place a decision that employers can't use past salary history to justify a pay disparity between male and female employees. The court on Thursday declined to take up a case from the California-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Judges there said the federal Equal Pay Act, which generally requires men and women to be paid equally for the same work, doesn't allow past salary history to be used as justification for a pay disparity. California law has since changed so that employers can't use a person's salary history in determining their starting salary. The case had been to the Supreme Court once before.