Opinion ID: 203902
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Fitness Testing Requirement

Text: Plaintiffs contend that, even if they were lawfully subject to retirement at age fifty-five, the Commonwealth had to give them the opportunity to avoid discharge by taking performance tests that could prove their physical and mental fitness to continue working. This is the testing described above, which Congress expected to be in place within about four years after enactment of the 1996 amendment. Although plaintiffs acknowledge that the particular tests referenced in the statute have never been identified by the Secretary of HHS, they insist that testing is nonetheless a prerequisite to their discharge. They claim that, in the absence of federally developed tests, Puerto Rico was required to devise its own evaluation systemor refrain from imposing mandatory retirement. We reject this reading of the statute. Although the language of § 623(j)(1) requires careful parsing, it unambiguously requires testing as a pre-condition to mandatory retirement only for those employees who would be discharged after the Secretary of HHS promulgates appropriate tests. [13] As described above, section (j)(1) states that the testing requirement applies if the individual was discharged after the date described in such section, and such section is section 3(d)(2) of the Age Discrimination in Employment Amendments of 1996. 29 U.S.C. § 623(j)(1). [14] The date referenced in section (d)(2) is the date of issuance of the regulations the Secretary shall issue ... identifying valid, nondiscriminatory job performance tests that shall be used by employers seeking the exemption. Pub.L. No. 104-208 § 119(2), 110 Stat. 3009-25 (1996). Thus, when pieced together, the elements of the statutory requirement are that (1) employers seeking the benefit of the safe-harbor provision (2) must use the tests identified by the Secretary (3) once regulations identifying those tests have been issued. Although the statutory language is not in our view reasonably susceptible to another interpretation, our conclusion would be the same if we deemed the provision ambiguous and found it necessary to consider legislative history to ascertain Congress's intent. See Godin, 534 F.3d at 56 (noting that, [i]f the statute is ambiguous, we look beyond the text to the legislative history in order to determine congressional intent); see also Minch, 363 F.3d at 620 n. 4 (stating that [t]he failure to promulgate guidelines and regulations for fitness testing gives rise to an ambiguity in the statute); Drnek v. Chicago, 192 F.Supp.2d 835, 840 (N.D.Ill.2002) (concluding that the plain language of § 623 is ambiguous because it leaves a gap by requiring employers to comply with regulations that have not been promulgated). In a thoughtful discussion that was endorsed by the Seventh Circuit in Minch, see 363 F.3d at 620 n. 4, the district court in Drnek examined § 623(j)'s legislative history at length before concluding that the public safety exemption in the provision was subject to the use of fitness tests when and if suitable tests were ever made available by HHS. Drnek, 192 F.Supp.2d at 842. The court cited comments made during floor debates on the proposed legislation that showed skepticism among members of Congress about the adequacy of existing physical tests. See id. at 841-42. [15] The court then concluded: [T]he legislative history suggests that the intent of the amendment was to reinstate an exemption from the ADEA allowing for age-based retirement for public safety officials because fitness tests were unreliable, expensive, and had potential discriminatory effects on women and minorities. The provision in § 623(j)(1) for compliance with § 3(d)(2) merely imposed an obligation on employers to provide tests when and if suitable tests became available; it did not make tests a condition precedent to the operation of the exemption. Id. at 842. We thus agree with the Seventh Circuit that this component of section 623(j)(1) is essentially meaningless at this juncture. Minch, 363 F.3d at 620 n. 4. At present, a State or local government seeking to enforce a mandatory retirement provision must show only that: (1) the designated retirement age was set forth in a law that either was (a) in effect on March 3, 1983, or (b) in a law enacted after September 30, 1996, and is no lower than age fifty-five; and (2) the termination was taken pursuant to a bona fide retirement plan that is not a subterfuge for impermissible age discrimination. Having already addressed the timing and scope of Law 181, we now consider appellants' contention that the statute was a subterfuge to evade the purposes of the ADEA. [16]