ADEA Meets the Supreme Court
Knowing employment law is essential for passing the PHR and SPHR exams (not to mention for keeping your company out of hot water). While the text of the laws is important (however unintelligible), and the agency regulations are critical, decisions of the United States Supreme Court are paramount. The Court interprets laws and guidelines as cases are brought before them, and that is where the metaphorical buck stops. What the Supreme Court says, goes. Following is a discussion of how Supreme Court decisions have clarified disparate impact in age discrimination.
In the 2005 case, Azel P. Smith, et al., v. City of Jackson, Mississippi, the Supreme Court ruled that disparate impact theory can be used to press claims of age discrimination against employers similar to cases of race discrimination. The disparate impact theory allows plaintiffs to challenge an employer’s neutral practices if they have a disproportionately negative impact on persons over the age of 40. Such a legal challenge would be based upon a statistical analysis showing that the percent of individuals over age 40 who were harmed by the decision was greater than for those under age 40. However, the reach of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) is somewhat narrower than other discrimination laws since the ADEA allows employers to make decisions for reasonable factors other than age (RFOA), which could protect an employer’s decision if it was a reasonable nonage factor.
In a separate case, General Dynamics Land Systems Inc. v. Cline, the Supreme Court ruled that reverse discrimination does not violate the ADEA. Employers may treat older workers more favorably than younger workers without fear of violating the law.