Opinion ID: 753270
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Relatedness of Title VII & ADEA Claims

Text: 9 The district court reduced Plaintiff's initial fee request by an additional 50 percent because the court concluded that Plaintiff's race/national origin discrimination claims were unrelated to his ADEA claim. Plaintiff asserts that the district court abused its discretion in finding that his unsuccessful race and national origin discrimination claims under Title VII were unrelated to his successful ADEA claim. Plaintiff contends that all except one of the elements necessary to prove Title VII and ADEA claims overlap. 4 Plaintiff states that for this reason his claims are related, rather than distinctly different. 10 Despite these shared elements, Plaintiff's race/national origin and age discrimination claims did not arise from the same events or the same course of conduct. It was within the district court's discretion to find that Plaintiff's Title VII claims were based on distinctly different facts and legal theories from his successful ADEA claim. Accordingly, the district court did not err in concluding that Plaintiff's unsuccessful Title VII claims were not related to his successful ADEA claim. 11