Opinion ID: 5949
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Evidence of an Unwritten Policy to Discriminate Against Persons Over Forty

Text: 64 The district court next stated that [e]vidence was adduced that the Service had an unwritten policy discouraging promotion of persons over forty to upwardly mobile positions. We assume from its inclusion of this oblique statement in its findings that the court accepted as fact that such a policy actually existed. The record, however, does not support such a conclusion. 65 The only evidence that Odom produced on this point consists of four statements, which together cannot overcome the clearly erroneous standard to support a finding of an unwritten policy of age discrimination. First, Inspector Smith, one of the review panelists, mused that, at one point in his career, he may have been denied both a promotion and a lateral move because of age. Second, Smith said that, in his opinion, persons over fifty did not have the same chance for advancement as younger workers. Third, Inspector Gump, the chairman of the review panel, had written potential for advancement in his notes concerning general factors that the panelists should consider; and he testified that he had intended to use this factor only in the event a tie-breaker became necessary--which it never did. Finally, there are Odom's self-serving but otherwise unsupported assertions concerning his belief in the existence of such an unwritten policy. 66 All of the evidence adduced to demonstrate the existence of such a policy is at most anecdotal and bare speculation. We thus hold that the district court's finding that the Service maintained such an unwritten policy--and the inclusion thereof among the circumstances considered by the court in concluding that discrimination occurred--was clear error.