In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has held that an employee bringing a claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) must show that age was the “but for” cause of the challenged adverse action. Moreover, the court held that the burden does not shift back to the employer to prove that it would have taken the same action regardless of the employee’s age even where the employee has produced some evidence that age was a motivating factor in the adverse decision. In Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., Jack Gross, a 54-year old employee filed a complaint against FBL Financial Services, alleging that the company demoted him from a claims administration director to a claims project coordinator because of his age. Gross won at trial under an ADEA mixed-motive instruction, which allowed the jury to find liability based on age being a “motivating factor” in the adverse action. The Supreme Court reversed, finding that “the ordinary meaning of the ADEA’s requirement that an employer took adverse action ‘because of age’ is that age was the [primary] ‘reason’ that the employer decided to act,” and not just one of many factors that played a role in the employer’s decision. According to the Court, victims of age discrimination can no longer rely on the Supreme Court’s Price Waterhouse ruling as a basis for mixed-motive jury instructions in ADEA cases because “[t]he ADEA’s text does not authorize an alleged mixed-motives age discrimination claim.” While the immediate impact of this decision may be discouraging for employees, the good news is that it will likely spur Congress to amend the ADEA so that employees need only prove that age was a motivating factor in an employer’s decision. For additional information on the ADEA, visit The Employment Law Group® law firm’s Age Discrimination Practice at http://employmentlawgroup.net/PracticeAreas/AgeDiscrimination.asp.
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July 20th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
[...] The EEOC also provides a specific discussion on waivers of age discrimination claims to address recent developments under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), such as the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc. [...]