Opinion ID: 712193
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Comparing Title VII and the ADEA

Text: 65
66 Even a cursory examination reveals that there are substantial differences between the standards applicable under the ADEA and those applicable under Title VII. I begin with a comparison of the Supreme Court opinions in Hicks and Hazen Paper. 67 Hazen Paper, a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, squarely addressed the issue of the sufficiency of the evidence to support an ADEA claim. 5 Hazen Paper provides that there can be no base liability in an ADEA case unless age actually played a role in ... and had a determinative influence on the challenged employment decision. Hazen Paper, 507 U.S. at 609-11, 113 S.Ct. at 1706 (1993). Other statements in Hazen Paper elaborate on the requirement that age actually play a role and exercise a determinative influence on the employer's decision. Id. at 607-09, 113 S.Ct. at 1705 (We now clarify that there is no disparate treatment under the ADEA when the factor motivating the employer is some feature other than the employee's age.); and id. at 609-11, 113 S.Ct. at 1706 (In a disparate treatment case, liability depends on whether the protected trait (under the ADEA, age) actually motivated the employer's decision.). 68 Hicks, decided two months after Hazen Paper, is a five-to-four decision addressing, not sufficiency, and not the ADEA, but the propriety of judgment as a matter of law under Title VII after a bench trial which resulted in findings by the district court that (1) the reasons offered by the employer for the discharge were not the real reasons, but that (2) the plaintiff/employee had nonetheless failed to prove that racial discrimination was a motivating factor in the discharge. 6 69 Lest there be any doubt, there is a real and statutory basis for distinguishing between a determinative influence under the ADEA (Hazen Paper ) and a motivating factor under Title VII (Hicks ). The ADEA prohibits discrimination against any individual because of age, but provides that is it not unlawful for an employer to take action otherwise prohibited by the ADEA when the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age. 29 U.S.C. § 623(f)(1). Title VII, on the other hand, prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2. Since 1991, however, an employer is liable under Title VII anytime one of the protected characteristics was a motivating factor for any employment practice, even though other factors also motivated the practice. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m) (emphasis added). By adding § 2000e-2(m) in 1991, Congress intended to overrule the Supreme Court's opinion in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989), which held that an employment decision motivated in part by prejudice does not violate Title VII if the employer can show after the fact that the same decision would have been made for nondiscriminatory reasons. H.R.Rep. No. 102-40(II) U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1991, pp. 549, 694, 695. However, even though the ADEA was amended in other respects in 1991, and even though Price Waterhouse had been applied to the ADEA, no companion changes were made to the ADEA to unify the standards applicable under Title VII and the ADEA. See also Hazen Paper, 507 U.S. at 609-11, 113 S.Ct. at 1706 (We now clarify that there is no disparate treatment under the ADEA when the factor motivating the employer is some feature other than the employee's age.). 70 There are other differences in the standards applicable under Title VII and the ADEA. For example, in 1991 Congress also added to Title VII new subsections (k) defining the burden of proof in disparate impact cases and (1) prohibiting discriminatory use of test scores. By contrast, Hazen Paper indicates that disparate impact theory is not available under ADEA. See Hazen Paper, 507 U.S. at 609-11, 113 S.Ct. at 1706 (we have never decided whether a disparate impact theory of liability is available under the ADEA); id. (Disparate treatment captures the essence of what Congress sought to prohibit in the ADEA.); id. at 607-09, 113 S.Ct. at 1705 (employment action based on factor empirically correlated with but distinct from the employee's age does not violate the ADEA). While our Court has not addressed the issue, other circuits have followed that lead. E.g., Ellis v. United Airlines, Inc., 73 F.3d 999, 1003 (10th Cir. Jan. 4, 1996); EEOC v. Francis W. Parker School, 41 F.3d 1073 (7th Cir.1994). 7 71 Both Congress and the Supreme Court treat the ADEA and Title VII as two separate and distinct statutory provisions. Until Congress repeals the ADEA and amends Title VII by defining age as a protected characteristic under Title VII, or until the Supreme Court clearly and expressly requires that everything it writes in a Title VII case should be automatically and equally applied in an ADEA case, we should follow the Supreme Court's lead in Hazen Paper and Hicks by recognizing that the standards governing Title VII liability and ADEA liability are not, and need not, be identical. Under Hazen Paper, an ADEA plaintiff must demonstrate that age actually motivated the employer's decision or actually played a role in the employer's decision making process or had a determinative influence on the outcome. The world will not come to an end, nor will our system be in peril, because ADEA plaintiffs face a different and higher burden than Title VII plaintiffs.B. The Hicks Permissive Inference and ADEA Willfulness 72 There is one other, crucial difference in the statutory schemes. The ADEA provides a two-tiered concept of liability which permits recovery of an additional amount of liquidated damages upon proof that the employer's violation of the ADEA was willful. 29 U.S.C. § 623 (base liability); 29 U.S.C. § 626(b) (liability for willful violations); see also Hazen Paper, 507 U.S. at 613-15, 113 S.Ct. at 1708 (ADEA section providing liquidated damages for willful violations was derived from the Fair Labor Standards Act). Title VII, on the other hand, does not provide for liquidated damages. Under the ADEA, an employer's violation is willful when the employer knows or shows reckless disregard for whether its conduct is prohibited by the ADEA. Hazen Paper, 507 U.S. at 613-15, 113 S.Ct. at 1708. 73 Accordingly, the jury in this case received and answered the following issues: 74 (1) Do you find by a preponderance of the evidence that defendant Guiberson Oil Tools terminated the plaintiff Calvin Rhodes because of his age? 75 Answer: Yes. 76 (2) Do you find by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant acted willfully when it terminated the plaintiff Calvin Rhodes? Answer: No. (Emphasis added.) 77 The jury's answer of no on the willfulness issue was not appealed and is binding on this Court for purposes of appellate review. Therefore, the jury's uncontested finding is that Guiberson Oil neither knew nor showed reckless disregard for whether its conduct was prohibited by the ADEA; and that finding cannot be ignored or disregarded in assessing the sufficiency of the evidence in this case. 78 Although candor in employment relationships is a laudatory goal, it is clear that nothing in the ADEA statute says that an employer will be liable if he does not tell his employee the real reason for his discharge. The fundamental premise underlying the permissive inference allowed by Hicks is that if the employer lies about its reasons for discharging an employee, an inference may be drawn that he did so in order to cover up the real reason: unlawful and intentional discrimination in violation of the statute. However, a lie is a willful and intentional act, a conscious misstatement of fact, a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive. One cannot be a liar in good faith or by accident or as a result of negligence. Now if a jury has answered the willfulness issue No and thereby found that the employer did not act with knowledge or reckless disregard as to whether its actions violated the ADEA (as the jury did in this case), is it reasonable to infer that that same jury would have found the employer lied? I think not. Conversely, if the jury in this case had actually found that Guiberson did not tell Rhodes the truth about why it was discharging him and that Guiberson's stated reason for discharging Rhodes--RIF--was false (inferential findings which the majority says would be supported by the evidence), then would not the jury almost certainly have answered the willfulness issue Yes? Since the jury in this case did not answer the willfulness issue Yes, I think the majority's house of cards collapses around them. The probative value of the jury's actual answer of No to the willfulness issue completely overwhelms the thin evidence upon which the majority relies to construct the hypothetical finding of mendacity as support for the Hicks permissive inference.