Opinion ID: 419809
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Other Jury Instructions

Text: 42 Western challenges a number of the other instructions given. The standard of review applicable is whether the giving or refusing of particular instructions, construed in the light of the instructions as a whole, was prejudicial. Kelly v. American Standard, Inc., 640 F.2d 974, 985 (9th Cir.1981); Laugesen v. Anaconda Co., 510 F.2d 307, 315 (6th Cir.1975).
43 Western challenges the trial court's business necessity instruction. Business necessity may be invoked as an affirmative defense to justify the retention of a rule that is apparently neutral but has a disparate impact on the basis of race, sex or age. Western's rule against downbidding had a disparate impact on younger and older pilots. Although it forbade the movement of both to lower positions, it operated also to deprive the older pilot of an opportunity for continued employment, while having no such effect on the younger pilot. Western attempted to justify its rule on the ground that the inferior position requested by the plaintiffs, that of second officer, could only safely be filled by someone less than sixty years of age. To reach its overall verdict, however, the jury must necessarily have determined that the age restriction on second officers was not supportable as a bona fide occupational qualification, a defense which Western asserted on the basis of this identical safety rationale. The jury finding deprives Western's only ground for claiming business necessity of any legitimacy, and renders Western's various objections to the wording of the business necessity instruction irrelevant.
44 Western argues that the district court erred in instructing the jury that the defendant had the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that its decision refusing to allow Criswell and Starley to downbid to position of second officer was motivated by reasonable factors other than age. It urges that instead the McDonnell Douglas test of articulation of some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason should have been used. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). Western confuses the elements of and burdens borne in the case-in-chief and those of an affirmative defense. The reasonable factors defense appears alongside the BFOQ exception in the ADEA, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 623(f), and is an affirmative defense for which the employer bears the burden of proof. 45 29 U.S.C. Sec. 623(f) provides affirmative defenses to an employer which in relevant part are as follows:(f) It shall not be unlawful for an employer, employment agency, or labor organization-- 46 (1) to take any action otherwise prohibited under [the sections specifying prohibited employer practices] ... where the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age; 47