Opinion ID: 4305333
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Court’s Pension Cases

Text: Caterpillar asserts that the Supreme Court has expressly approved of classifications based on pension status. For support it cites two ADEA disparate-treatment cases. See Hazen Paper, 507 U.S. at 611 (holding that an employer permissibly terminated a 62-year-old to avoid paying pension benefits that would have vested six months later); Ky. Ret. Sys. v. EEOC, 554 U.S. 135, 143 (2008) (holding that disability benefits that turned on pension eligibility were permissible). Caterpillar explains that an action based purely on pension status is not taken “because of such individual’s age,” so liability exists only where “pension status serve[s] as a proxy for age.” Ky. Ret. Sys., 554 U.S. at 142 (internal quotation marks omitted). But these disparate-treatment cases shed no light on the scope of disparate-impact liability. The plaintiff in a disparate-treatment case must prove that age “actually motivated the employer’s decision.” Id. at 141 (quotation marks omitted). Because age and pension status are “analytically distinct,” an employer may “take account of one while ignoring the other.” Hazen Paper, 507 U.S. at 611. In contrast, a disparate-impact No. 17-2956 13 claim necessarily involves a policy—e.g., conditioning benefits on pension status—that is motivated by a factor other than age. As the Court explained in Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory: The [reasonable factor other than age] defense in a disparate-impact case … is not focused on the asserted fact that a non-age factor was at work; we assume it was. The focus of the de- fense is that the factor relied upon was a “rea- sonable” one for the employer to be using. 554 U.S. 84, 96 (2008). We therefore turn to Caterpillar’s affirmative defense. 1