Supreme Court: “Mixed Motive” Not Enough for Age Discrimination
In a 5-4 decision today (Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc.), the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out the concept of a “mixed motive” age discrimination case under the ADEA. Plaintiffs must now prove that age was the “but-for” cause of the challenged adverse employment action.
Here’s the key language:
We hold that a plaintiff bringing a disparate-treatment claim pursuant to the ADEA must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that age was the “but-for” cause of the challenged adverse employment action. The burden of persuasion does not shift to the employer to show that it would have taken the action regardless of age, even when a plaintiff has produced some evidence that age was one motivating factor in that decision.
What Does This Mean for Employers?
Plaintiffs used to be able to state a claim if age was a factor in a decision. Now, they must prove it was the factor.
If you’re a legal junkie and want to read the court’s full decision, click here.
June 18th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
[...] proof standard to prove their claim. A sampling of today’s blog comments are here, here and here. (We will update the post with additional blog posts or articles of interest.) More after the [...]