Court Opinion

ID: 9842125
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 20:12:46.176191+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:12.019800
License: Public Domain

. Justice Kennedy,
with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Thomas join, concurring.
I agree with the Court that the Court of Appeals placed improper reliance on respondent’s evidence of pension interference and that the standard for determining willfulness announced in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U. S. 111 (1985), applies to individual acts of age discrimination as *618well as age discrimination manifested in formal, company-wide policy. I write to underscore that the only claim based upon the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U. S. C. § 621 et seq., asserted by respondent in this litigation is that petitioners discriminated against him because of his age. He has advanced no claim that petitioners’ use of an employment practice that has a disproportionate effect on older workers violates the ADEA. See App. 29-30 (amended complaint); 5 Record 71-76 (jury instructions). As a result, nothing in the Court’s opinion should be read as incorporating in the ADEA context the so-called “disparate impact” theory of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. §§2000e to 2000e-17. As the Court acknowledges, ante, at 610, we have not yet addressed the question whether such a claim is cognizable under the ADEA, and there are substantial arguments that it is improper to carry over disparate impact analysis from Title VII to the ADEA. See Markham v. Geller, 451 U. S. 945 (1981) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari); Metz v. Transit Mix, Inc., 828 F. 2d 1202, 1216-1220 (CA7 1987) (Easterbrook, J., dissenting); Note, Age Discrimination and the Disparate Impact Doctrine, 34 Stan. L. Rev. 837 (1982). It is on the understanding that the Court does not reach this issue that I join in its opinion.