Court Opinion

ID: 9488132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:37:10.579136+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:42.677813
License: Public Domain

BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I.
I reluctantly concur in the court’s conclusion that O’Connor cannot make out a prima facie ease of discrimination under the framework set out in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), because he was not replaced by someone outside the protected class.
This circuit’s version of the McDonnell Douglas formula requires an ADEA plaintiff to demonstrate that he was replaced by someone outside the protected age group. See, e.g., EEOC v. Clay Printing Co., 955 F.2d 936, 943 (4th Cir.1992); EEOC v. Western Elec. Co., 713 F.2d 1011, 1015 (4th Cir.1983). These cases compel my concurrence.
Such an absolute requirement, however, has no justification in law or policy. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq., states that its objective is “to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination.” 29 U.S.C. § 621(b). The Act contains no language permitting employers to favor a younger employee over an older one on the basis of age simply because the younger employee is within the protected age group.
As a method of proof, the McDonnell Douglas paradigm was “not intended to be rigid, mechanistic or ritualistic.” Furnco Constr. Co. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 577, 98 S.Ct. 2943, 2949, 57 L.Ed.2d 957 (1978). The age of a replacement employee should be a relevant, but not dispositive, factor for a court to consider when deciding whether the plaintiff has established a prima facie case under the McDonnell Douglas framework.
*551Most other circuits take this approach and observe that a plaintiff need only show he was replaced by someone younger, whether outside or within the protected age group. See Freeman v. Package Machinery Co., 865 F.2d 1331, 1335 n. 2 (1st Cir.1988); Haskell v. Kaman Corp., 743 F.2d 113, 122 (2d Cir.1984); Maxfield v. Sinclair Int'l, 766 F.2d 788, 792-93 (3d Cir.1985); Bienkowski v. American Airlines, 851 F.2d 1503, 1506 (5th Cir.1988); Kralman v. Illinois Dep’t of Veterans’ Affairs, 23 F.3d 150, 153-56 (7th Cir.1994); Rinehart v. City of Independence, 35 F.3d 1263, 1265-66 (8th Cir.1994); Douglas v. Anderson, 656 F.2d 528, 531-33 (9th Cir.1981); Cooper v. Asplundh Tree Expert Co., 836 F.2d 1544, 1547 (10th Cir.1988); Carter v. City of Miami, 870 F.2d 578, 582-83 (11th Cir.1989); Cuddy v. Carmen, 694 F.2d 853, 857 (D.C.Cir.1982); see also Lovelace v. Sherwin-Williams Co., 681 F.2d 230, 237 n. 5 (4th Cir.1982) (dictum). But see LaPointe v. United Autoworkers Local 600, 8 F.3d 376, 379 (6th Cir.1993) (requiring plaintiff to show that replacement was outside protected age group).
II.
I respectfully dissent from the court’s conclusion that, under ordinary standards of proof, O’Connor failed to raise an inference of discrimination. An ADEA plaintiff may prevail on a discrimination claim by demonstrating, through direct or circumstantial evidence, that but for an employer’s motive to discriminate on the basis of age the plaintiff would not have been discharged. Clay Printing, 955 F.2d at 940; Lovelace, 681 F.2d at 239.
O’Connor has presented sufficient evidence of discriminatory motive to survive summary judgment. He testified in his deposition that Ed Williams, his supervisor, told him two weeks before his discharge, “O’Connor, you’re too damn old for this kind of work.” Williams denied making this statement.
Additionally, in his postjudgment motion, O’Connor provided the court with the affidavit of Phillip Dennis, who was a coworker of O’Connor. In his affidavit Dennis states that Williams told him Ted Arts, Williams’s boss, had ordered Williams to fire O’Connor. When Dennis asked why O’Connor was fired, Williams responded “that all of us were getting old, that Jim [O’Connor] was getting old.” Because this affidavit was not reasonably available earlier, I believe the district court should not have rejected it.
These statements create a genuine issue of material fact that should be decided at trial. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). A jury could reasonably infer from Williams’s statement or from the information contained in the Dennis affidavit that age was the determining factor in O’Connor’s discharge. Because a trier of fact should determine O’Connor’s claim, I would vacate the judgment of the district court and remand for a full evidentiary hearing.