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U.S. Supreme Court Adds Barrier to Age Discrimination Cases

Posted on Jun 19, 2009

Age discrimination cases now have a different standard than gender or race discrimination cases. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that in order to recover, an employee must show that absent the age bias, the employer would not have taken the adverse action against the employee. Before this, employees just needed to show that age along with other factors was responsible for the adverse employment situation.

In the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, the employee (age 54) claimed that because of age and other factors, he had been demoted from his post as a claims administration director to the position of a claims project coordinator. This change resulted in a decrease in his salary and stock options. Because the employee could not show that age was the overriding reason for the demotion, he could not recover.