Opinion ID: 799366
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Age Discrimination Based On Disparate Impact

Text: Next, the plaintiffs invoke statistical evidence to support their age discrimination claims based on a theory of disparate impact. They indicate that out of a pool of approximately 6,000 pilots, only 176 younger pilots (who quit or otherwise left Northwest employment prior to the cutoff date) received smaller claim shares than the plaintiffs, and only 73 older pilots (presumably those who secured Second Officer positions after reaching the then-mandatory FAA retirement age of 60) received larger claim shares than the plaintiffs. (Br. of Pls.-Appellants 36.) Thus, according to the plaintiffs' interpretation, the correlation between money received and age held true 95% of the time. Id. But of course, the plaintiffs' statistic fails to capture the fact that any older pilot who reached the age-60 threshold and retired after July 31, 2006 received a full claim share. So even though the cutoff date may have harmed the plaintiffs, it benefitted many more older pilots than the plaintiffs' statistic suggests. However, even if we presume, without deciding, that the plaintiffs have put forth sufficient statistical evidence to survive summary judgment, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act explicitly states that an employer or union may avoid liability if it can show that the challenged action was based on reasonable factors other than age. 29 U.S.C. § 623(f)(1). The reasonable factors other than age clausean affirmative defense rather than an element of the discrimination claim that a plaintiff must disprove indicates that Congress took account of the distinctive nature of age discrimination, and the need to preserve a fair degree of leeway for employment decisions with effects that correlate with age.... Meacham, 554 U.S. at 102, 128 S.Ct. 2395; see Allen, 545 F.3d at 404 ([O]nce a plaintiff has satisfied the nontrivial burden of identifying a specific employment practice, the burden of persuasion shifts to the employer to show that the practice is supported by a [reasonable factor other than age].). Notably, the inquiry is one of reasonableness, and [u]nlike the business necessity test [applicable to Title VII cases], which asks whether there are other ways for the employer to achieve its goals that do not result in a disparate impact on a protected class, the [reasonable factors other than age test] includes no such requirement. City of Jackson, 544 U.S. at 243, 125 S.Ct. 1536. The then-mandatory, FAA age-60 retirement rule is an example of such a factor. Applying this statutory provision to the present case, the plaintiffs' age discrimination claims fail. The union was forced to come up with some method for distributing the $888 million Northwest claim. Its decision to create an eligibility cutoff date that was based on active employment and that coincided with the beginning of the Bankruptcy Restructuring Agreement was a reasonable, although imperfect, attempt to reconcile conflicting objectives. Specifically, it was a mechanism that allowed the union to distribute the claim shares quickly while avoiding a `full credit for all approach' [that] would have given a pilot active for one month the same share (worth more than $100,000) as one working 85 months. (Letter Br. of Defs.-Appellees 2.) Thus, while it may have created effects that correlated with age, the union has met its burden of demonstrating that the distribution scheme was based on reasonable other factors. See 29 U.S.C. § 623(f)(1). We understand why the plaintiffs look longingly at the pilots who reached age 60 only a few months after the cutoff date, and feel underpaid by comparison. But we do not think that this line-drawing exercise as applied to older pilots was the result of discrimination. It was based on reasonable factors arising from limited bankruptcy funds to be distributed according to written criteria. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decision of the district court.