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Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
Did the SCOTUS decision pertain only to litigation in federal courts? Most age discrimination suits occur in state courts. And I'm not sure that SCOTUS recent decision makes much of a difference in state court proceedings.
In Illinois, as an example, the burden of proof was that of the plaintiff in Illinois for decades. Employers could take any action they wished with regard to employees, but it was up to the plaintiff who thought he had been harmed to prove that the employer's action was discriminatory based on age.
As an example, if an employer fired all the employees who were the highest paid, or who had the effect of increasing employer-paid health insurance premiums, that would be perfectly legal. The fact that almost all those employees would tend to be the oldest is immaterial unless the plaintiffs--the older workers--could prove that the management actually made their decision based on age. The plaintiff would have to find a memo or get someone to testify that the layoffs were based on age, not other factors. That's an almost impossible burden for the employee who feels he has been harmed to meet.
I guess I'm not certain how big a change this is in the federal courts.
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When a person files suit based solely on a federal statute (as this case was), it must originate in the federal court system. States also have comparable laws. When a case could be filed either as violating either the state or federal statute, the plaintiff sees which has the least burden of proof (if any at all) on the plaintiff, and which provides the greater recovery. Then, the case is filed in the court charged with enforcing that particular statute.
There are a couple of major Human Resources associations which provide tons of guidance to employers on how to document everything from all kinds of discrimination, Americans with Disabilities Act , and other claims. The outcome of this case was really not a big surprise, based on the single question that was before SCOTUS to answer (
Must a plaintiff present direct evidence of discrimination in order to obtain a mixed motive instruction in a non-Title VII discrimination case?) and the text of the ADEA.