Opinion ID: 400084
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Granting of Summary Judgment

Text: 22 The district court granted Home's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the complaint. It found that Home had two valid defenses to the action. 23 First, the court ruled that the reasons advanced by Home were not sham explanations for its decision to lower the normal retirement age. In particular, the court found that the desire to ensure adequate training for successors to the retirees was a plausible explanation for Home's decision to lower the mandatory retirement age in tandem with the normal retirement age. The court stated as follows:According to Home, it had experienced a problem prior to the amendment in that employees would decide to retire on the spur of the moment, without grooming their successors adequately before leaving. Home says that given its other motivations to amend the plan so as to lower the normal retirement age, it was loath to institute a revised plan which would increase its vulnerability to this problem, by eradicating all financial incentive to work to the age of 65. By keeping the mandatory and normal retirement ages the same, and therefore lowering both the mandatory and normal retirement age to 62, it hoped to avoid aggravation of the preexisting problem and also to take steps toward reducing the original difficulties. Plaintiff has asserted that this reasoning makes no sense. However, we find Home's reasoning plausible. Since many of its employees were already retiring early, ... retirements that previously had occurred unpredictably between the ages of 62 and 65 presumably would now all occur at fixed predictable dates related to employees' sixty-second birthdays. Knowing the date in advance, the company could make sure the retiring employee began to groom a successor well in advance of his retirement. 24 We do not find in Home's reasons for lowering the normal and mandatory retirement age an intent to disadvantage older workers or evade the Act.... It is obvious that the amendment removed workers between the ages of 62 and 65 from the company's work force. However, we do not find here a scheme ... or artifice of evasion such as (United Air Lines Inc. v. McMann, 434 U.S. 192, 98 S.Ct. 444, 54 L.Ed.2d 402 (1977)) indicates must be present for there to be a subterfuge under § 623(f)(2). See 434 U.S. at 203 (98 S.Ct. at 450). 25 We are not persuaded of the existence of a subterfuge by plaintiff's argument that with respect to ensuring trained successors and improving employee morale by speeding promotional advancement, there were other ways to achieve the same ends with less age-related impact. Plaintiff has not specifically set forth any less detrimental alternatives which were available to defendant. A persuasive showing that there were at hand and known to the employer, or otherwise apparent, alternative solutions to the problem, would tend to show that the employer intended to evade the Act. Cf. (EEOC v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R., 632 F.2d 1107 (4th Cir. 1980)) ((m)anagement considered and rejected several alternatives, and subterfuge found). There has been no such showing here. 26 Slip op. at 10-12 (footnotes omitted; brackets added). 27 The second ground for the summary judgment was Home's Portal Act defense. Relying on Addison v. Huron Stevedoring Corp., 204 F.2d 88 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 346 U.S. 877, 74 S.Ct. 120, 98 L.Ed. 384 (1953), the district court found that Quinn's deposition adequately established that Home had relied in good faith on an interpretive ruling and two opinion letters of the Wage-Hour Administrator of the Department of Labor. 28 For the reasons below, we vacate the judgment in favor of Home and remand for such further proceedings as may be necessary.