Supreme Court Issues Important ADEA Opinion

From SCOTUSblog this morning: The Supreme Court, in a major legal victory for older workers, ruled 5-3 Wednesday that employees need not show intentional discrimination against them based on age in order to win a case under federal law. They…

From SCOTUSblog this morning:

The Supreme Court, in a major legal victory for older workers, ruled 5-3 Wednesday that employees need not show intentional discrimination against them based on age in order to win a case under federal law. They can prevail on a theory that an employer’s job practice had a more negative impact on older than younger workers.

Resolving a conflict among lower courts on the coverage of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Court said that proof of discriminatory intent is not required. But, it said, the scope of ADEA’s protection in disparate impact cases is narrower than under another anti-discrimination law, Title VII of federal civil rights law.

You can access the syllabus for the opinion here–Smith v. City of Jackson.

Also, the Supreme Court issued another important decision yesterday in a Title IX case which you can read about here. The case is Jackson v. Board of Birmingham Board of Education. More on the case here in an article from the Washington Times.

UPDATE: You can access the principal opinion written by Justice Stevens in the Smith case here. SCOTUSblog reports that Justice Scalia concurred in part and concurred in the judgment, and that Justice O’Connor, joined by Justices Kennedy and Thomas, concurred in the judgment, but in effect dissented on the central disparate-impact question.

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