Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Lab.
128 S. Ct. 2395 (U.S. 2008)
Former employees brought an action against an employer, alleging that the employer's method of reducing its workforce disparately impacted the employees based on their ages. Upon the grant of a writ of certiorari, the employees challenged the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit which held that the employees failed to show that the employer's factors other than age were unreasonable. The employer had its managers rate the employees based on performance, flexibility, and critical skills, with the statistically improbable result that 30 of the 31 employees who were laid off were at least 40 years of age. The employees asserted a disparate-impact claim under the under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 29 U.S.C.S. § 621 et seq., and the employer contended that any disparate impact based on age was excepted from liability under 29 U.S.C.S. § 623(f)(1) based on the employer's reliance on reasonable factors other than age (RFOA). The U.S. Supreme Court held that the burden was improperly placed on the employees to show that the employer's criteria were unreasonable, since RFOA was an affirmative defense for which the employer bore both the burden of production and the burden of persuasion. The ADEA set out liability exemptions, including RFOA, in provisions separate from the age discrimination prohibitions and, while the employees were required to identify the challenged layoff factors, the employer that sought to benefit from the RFOA exemption was required to prove that the exemption applied. The Court vacated the judgment finding that the employees failed to show that the employer's layoff criteria were unreasonable and remanded the case for further proceedings.