WASHINGTON — At a time when claims of job discrimination on the basis of age are climbing, the Supreme Court reversed a long-standing rule Thursday and made it substantially harder for older workers to win such cases in court.
Previously, judges across the nation had held that if a worker could show age was one of the motivating factors in a layoff or demotion, then the employer was required to prove it had a legitimate reason for its action separate from age.
In a 5-4 decision, however, the court’s conservative majority threw out this two-step approach to age-discrimination cases, saying workers must bear the full burden of proving age was the deciding factor in their dismissal or demotion.
Since workers claiming such discrimination would be unlikely to have been present when their employers discussed the planned action against them, analysts said, it would be extremely difficult to obtain hard evidence that age was the critical factor.
“This is a significant and marked change,” said Diana Hoover, a corporate defense lawyer in Houston. “It imposes a difficult burden on the employee. You are not going to have an employer stand up and announce, ‘I’m discriminating against you because of your age.’ ”
The ruling was sharply criticized by the National Senior Citizens Law Center, AARP and several civil-rights group. They urged Congress to reverse the court’s ruling.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, issued a statement that compared the ruling to the much-criticized Lilly Ledbetter decision from two years ago. Then, the same 5-4 majority said a woman who for years had been paid less than men for doing the same work could not sue because she did not learn of the discrimination until she retired.
Earlier this year, Congress passed a new law to reverse the Ledbetter decision, and President Barack Obama made it the first bill he signed into law.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel Alito made up the majority.
The ruling came at a time when concern about age discrimination has been rising.
Last year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said the number of newly filed age-bias claims rose by 29 percent, the fastest of any job category.
Thursday’s ruling overturned a $47,000 jury verdict in favor of Jack Gross, a 54-year-old insurance claims adjuster from Iowa. He was demoted in a company reorganization, and his job was given to a woman in her 40s.
When Gross sued under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the judge told jurors at the end of the trial they should rule for him if his age was “a motivating factor” in the employer’s decision to demote him and if the employer failed to show it would have made the same decision regardless of age.
The high court said the judge erred by allowing the plaintiff to win his case without proving he was demoted because of his age.
The decision was welcomed by business groups. They say employers sometimes settle weak claims to avoid battling before a jury over the real reasons behind a lay-off.
“This is extremely important to small-business owners,” said Karen Harned, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business. She said employers should not have to defend themselves in court “based on speculative evidence that age was merely a motivating factor in an employer’s decision.”
The court’s dissenters — Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Stephen Breyer — maintained that if older workers could show some evidence that age entered into the decision to fire or demote them, then the employer should be required to show it had a good and legitimate reason for its decision independent of age.
Other court action
•The court sided with former Enron Corp. executive F. Scott Yeager in limiting prosecutors’ ability to retry defendants after a jury has acquitted them on some counts, but failed to reach a verdict on others. The court said a second trial is not permitted when the new indictment relies on the same essential facts as the charges that resulted in acquittal. The decision does not rule out a retrial for Yeager on charges related to financial fraud at the one-time energy giant, but makes one less likely.
•The court agreed to let an insurance company settle some asbestos lawsuits for about $500 million in exchange for blocking any future litigation. Travelers Cos. had settled with several groups of plaintiffs in 2004 with the caveat that federal courts make clear the company would not have to face any new similar lawsuits. The lower court said a bankruptcy judge lacked the authority to approve such a deal, but the high court said the settlements were valid.
