General
Dynamics Land Systems, Inc. v. Cline, 540
The United States Supreme Court recently ruled that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. (ADEA) is intended solely to protect older employees against preferential treatment toward younger employees and not by younger protected (40 and over) employees from more favorable treatment toward older employees.
General Dynamics and the union entered into a collective bargaining agreement which eliminated the company’s duty to provide health benefits to employees who later retired who were currently under age 50. Employees age 40 to 50, protected workers under the ADEA, filed an EEOC charge asserting reverse age discrimination, arguing that older employees were unlawfully receiving more favorable benefits based on age. The EEOC agreed. The employees then filed suit. The district court dismissed the claim as not viable under the ADEA. The Sixth Circuit reversed. In its view, if Congress ahd meant to limit the ADEA to protect only the older employee against the younger it would have said so in the statute.
The Supreme Court reversed. The Court analyzed the ADEA and its legislative history and found that “Congress’s interpretive clues speak almost unanimously to an understanding of discrimination as directed against workers who are older than the ones getting treated better.” Because Congress ignored everyone under 40 when drafting the ADEA, the Court concluded that the concern was to protect older workers versus younger workers. The Court flatly rejected as “clearly wrong” the EEOC’s interpretation suggesting “reverse” discrimination was protected, stating it “is beyond a reasonable doubt that the ADEA was concerned to protect a relatively older worker from discrimination that works to the advantage of the relatively young.”
While the ADEA does not prevent
an employer from favoring older workers over younger workers, employers still
need to be mindful of state laws, which can offer additional protections to
employees. States such as