Supreme Court Clarifies Reach of ADEA

Disparate Treatment in employment is intentional discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic. Federal law prohibits disparate treatment because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and age, as well as disability in qualified individuals who are disabled. (The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States)

Although the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA") has been in existence since 1967, the Supreme Court held in Smith v. City of Jackson that disparate impact claims are cognizable under the Act.

What Took So Long? For years, the broad scope of the ADEA was simply presumed to include disparate impact claims. After all, the ADEA is similar to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which has long been construed to address practices which have an adverse impact on minorities. Regulations of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") also prohibit disparate impact discrimination under the ADEA. Resourceful defense attorneys argued in recent years, however, that statutory language unique to the ADEA foreclosed disparate impact claims. Conservative courts, such as the Fifth Circuit, were receptive to this argument and held that disparate impact claims could not be brought under the ADEA. The Supreme Court stepped in to clarify the broad reach of the Act.

Employer’s Defense: The Supreme Court cited the same statutory language which prompted the debate about the reach of the ADEA as the basis for an employer’s defense to a disparate impact claim. The Act states that it shall not be unlawful for an employer to take any "otherwise prohibited” action “where the differentiation is based upon reasonable factors other than age." A practice which is shown to be "reasonable" can avoid liability under the ADEA even it has a disparate impact on older workers.

Lesson of Opinion: Smith v. City of Jackson is only the most recent of a long lime of Supreme Court opinions which have rejected the jurisprudence of conservative courts such as the Fifth Circuit regarding employment discrimination laws. The Supreme Court has mandated that discrimination laws must be liberally construed to serve the purpose of eradicating discrimination in the workplace. Every employer is advised to heed this mandate in its employment practices.

Robert G. Chadwick, Jr.,is a shareholder with the law firm of Campbell & Chadwick, P.C. His areas of practice are labor and employment, occupational safety and health, employee benefits (ERISA), TWC audits, and selected contract and tort litigation. He has 24 years of experience providing counsel for employment decisions and policies, drafting policies and agreements, representing clients in contract and settlement negotiations and representing clients in proceedings before arbitrators, administrative agencies, federal and state trial courts and federal and state appellate courts.

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