Supreme Court to decide age discrimination disparate impact issue
Findlaw (AP-Gina Holland) reports: “Court to Examine Age Bias in Workplace”
The Supreme Court said Monday it would consider . . . whether [federal agediscrimination law (ADEA)] . . . permits lawsuits on grounds that an employer’s action has a disproportionate impact on older workers. Justices already have settled that impact suits are allowed under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on a worker’s sex, religion or race.
Thomas Goldstein, the Washington lawyer representing the [plaintiffs], said that the two laws have the same wording, and the same purpose. . . .
“Because the act covers so many employees, the question presented is of great importance to the national economy,” Goldstein said in a filing.
Washington lawyer Glen Nager, representing the [defendant], agreed that courts around the country are divided over the standard for lawsuits. “All parties to the litigation,” he wrote, “are better served by obtaining final clarification from this court.”
The case is Smith v. City of Jackson, Miss. Read more
Without having read the opinion below, it seems there is no reason in principle not to allow disparate impact suits under the ADEA on the same terms as under Title VII. Fear of opening the floodgates of litigation is tempered by the fact such suits have not been tremendously successful under Title VII, in general, and have kind of fallen out of fashion. Plus statistical analyses — the heart of disparate impact cases — have long been used as supporting evidence in age cases anyway — under a disparate treatment analysis.
