Case Name: John A. MacKINNON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF NEW YORK HUMAN RESOURCES ADMINISTRATION, Defendant-Appellee
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 2011-09-19
Citations: 441 F. App'x 16
Docket Number: No. 08-1171-cv
Parties: John A. MacKINNON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF NEW YORK HUMAN RESOURCES ADMINISTRATION, Defendant-Appellee.
Judges: PRESENT: DENNIS JACOBS, Chief Judge, ROGER J. MINER, ROBERT A. KATZMANN, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: West's Federal Appendix
Volume: 441
Pages: 16–18

Head Matter:
John A. MacKINNON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF NEW YORK HUMAN RESOURCES ADMINISTRATION, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 08-1171-cv.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Sept. 19, 2011.
John A. MacKinnon, Lackawaxen, PA, pro se.
Leonard Koener and Pamela Seider Dol-gow, New York, NY, for Michael A. Cardozo, Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, for Appellee.
PRESENT: DENNIS JACOBS, Chief Judge, ROGER J. MINER, ROBERT A. KATZMANN, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
SUMMARY ORDER
Appellant John A. MacKinnon, proceeding pro se, appeals from a judgment entered March 7, 2008, in the Southern District of New York, dismissing his complaint brought pursuant to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"), as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 621-34. We assume the parties' familiarity with the underlying facts and the issues presented on appeal.
We review de novo a district court's grant of summary judgment. Aulicino v. N.Y.C. Dep't of Homeless Servs., 580 F.3d 73, 79-80 (2d Cir.2009). At bottom, MacKinnon seeks to avoid summary judgment based on one of two arguments: (1) that his employer's decision to reduce his overtime hours explicitly was motivated by concern over his age, meriting application of the mixed-motive Price Waterhouse framework, see Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 244-45, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989); or (2) that the circumstances of his reduction in overtime occurred under circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination because he was singled out for treatment. The factual record supports neither contention.
McKinnon's employer, the City of New York Human Resources Administration, reduced his hours for two reasons: because he appeared on a list of New York City's top fifty overtime earners (a politically unpopular distinction), and because he had become eligible for retirement and his pension benefits would be based on his compensation for his last twelve months of work. An employment decision motivated by pension costs, even when strongly correlated with age, is not an ADEA violation. See Hazen Paper v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604, 611, 113 S.Ct. 1701, 123 L.Ed.2d 338 (1993) ("When the employer's decision is wholly motivated by factors other than age, the problem of inaccurate and stigmatizing stereotypes disappears. This is true even if the motivating factor is correlated with age, as pension status typically is." (emphasis omitted)).
Nor did the court below err by finding that the circumstances of Mac-Kinnon's reduction in overtime did not occur in circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination. MacKinnon very well may be correct that only he and Alan Troy, his fellow manager of the same age, were forced to reduce their overtime. But he has not identified the ages of other employees who were not required to re duce their overtime, whether any of those employees were within twelve months of retirement eligibility, and whether any had appeared on the same list of top fifty overtime earners in which MacKinnon and Troy had appeared. Thus, MacKinnon has not given a reasonable fact finder any basis on which to conclude that his treatment was related to his age.
We have considered MacKinnon's other arguments on appeal and have found them to be without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is hereby AFFIRMED.
. The mixed-motive Price Waterhouse framework does not apply to cases brought under the ADEA. Gross v. FBL Fin. Servs., Inc., 557 U.S. 167, 129 S.Ct. 2343, 2352-53, 174 L.Ed.2d 119 (2009). Rather, in such cases, a plaintiff "must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that age was the 'but-for' cause of the challenged adverse employment action." Id. at 2352. The factual record here does not support any contention that might be made under Gross either.