Some experts agreeing with my assessment of the General Dynamics age case
February 27, 2004The ABA Journal e-report today has this by David L. Hudson Jr: “High court narrows age bias suits; Workers 40 and Older Can’t Sue Other Older Employees, Justices Say”
Cleveland attorney Mark Biggerman, who argued the case for the employees, [said]: “The court disregarded the plain meaning of the statute, the one relevant piece of legislative history and the EEOC interpretation of the relevant provision. That is a heck of a lot to sweep aside.”The reference is to cases concluding there may be reverse race discrimination claims (whites claiming discrimination because they are white) and same-sex sexual harassment claims.
“It was surprising that the court would focus so much on the history behind the ADEA when the language of the act appears to be unambiguous,” says professor Lawrence Rosenthal of Northern Kentucky University’s Salmon P. Chase College of Law in Highland Heights. “In similar cases, the court simply looked at the language of the statute and concluded that if the statute prohibited discrimination because of a particular characteristic, then it did not matter whether the person claiming protection was in the class Congress initially meant to protect.”
The General Dynamics dissent mentions these cases, and the analogy is quite reasonable. The point is that regardless of which type of discrimination was more common and thus in the mind of Congress (as if it is ever of one mind!), our other discrimination laws have been read as promoting equality, not as favoring a protected class. The limitation of the ADEA to those 40-and-over makes such interpretation a bit tough, though the dissent attempts to explain it away.
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