>On Wednesday, the court laid down the ruling in the
case of
Smith v. City of Jackson
and made it easier for those over 40 to allege
discrimination, even if there was no intended harm. The
court dismissed the suit at hand, but voted 5-3 (with Chief
Justice William Rehnquist not participating) that such
suits are allowed underage-discrimination laws.
>In the case, 30 police officers and dispatchers sued
the City of Jackson, Mississippi, over a pay performance
plan that they claimed gave substantially larger pay raises
to employees with five or fewer years of tenure (See
Supreme Court to Hear Age Discrimination Suit
). The suit claimed that the policy, even if not
intentional, had an unfavorable impact on employees 40 and
over.
>Lower courts had thrown out the suit, reasoning that
disparate impact claims were barred.
>In the ruling Wednesday, Justice John Paul Stevens -
who is 84 - wrote that while police officers can get into
court to show unfavorable impact, they failed to do so
here. He said the city's explanation that it was trying to
make salaries for junior officers more competitive with
similar positions was "reasonable." He also said that
in some instances, employers were allowed to treat workers
differently because of age. "Age ... not uncommonly has
relevance to an individual's capacity to engage in certain
types of employment," wrote Stevens in supporting the point
that age can be used in certain circumstances.
Disparate Claims
>The court has already ruled that so-called
"disparate impact claims" are allowed under Title VII of
the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based
on sex, religion or race. With its 5-3 decision, the court
made it clear on Wednesday that it should not be different
for age, although it stated the scope of liability is
narrower.
>Employers have claimed that allowing disparate
impact claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment
Act (ADEA) could hurt their ability to make decisions based
on age-neutral factors such as training or performance,
even if the impact happens to be greater on older workers,
according to the AP. Advocates on the other side assert
that employers are never frank about intentionally favoring
younger workers, making age bias claims difficult to win
without the rare "smoking gun".
>The Supreme Court ruling tries to strike a balance
between the two opposing sides.
It allows older workers to make a disparate impact
claim under the ADEA regardless of intent, but also permits
an employer to cite "reasonable" factors - such as
cost-cutting - to support a practice that hurts older
workers.
>Applying these standards to the case at hand,
Stevens wrote that "the city's decision to grant a larger
raise to lower echelon employees for the purpose of
bringing salaries in line with that of surrounding police
forces was a decision based on a 'reasonable factor other
than age' that responded to the city's legitimate goal of
retaining police officers." Because workers who are older
are usually long-time employees with higher salaries,
businesses could not cut expenses without violating the law
even if no ill intent was involved, he wrote in dismissing
the suit.
>The ruling makes it clear that although such suits
are now allowed, the standards for a case will be high. The
ruling shows that older workers now have a lesser burden to
raise their claim in court, although, ultimately, it may
still be difficult for them to win. About 75 million people
- roughly half the nation's workforce - are covered by the
decision.