Federal laws prohibit employers in New Jersey and around the country from discriminating against their employees on the basis of certain enumerated categories, such as religion, gender and age. But age discrimination cases are somewhat different from other cases because of a 2009 Supreme Court ruling in a case called Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc. By a 5-4 margin, the Court declared that employees who bring an age discrimination claim must show that their age was the “determinative factor” in their employer’s discriminatory conduct.

The Court’s standard marked a departure from that typically used in discrimination cases brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In other workplace discrimination lawsuits, an employee is not required to show that their gender, race or similarly protected category was the determinative factor leading to the discriminatory action. Instead, they need only meet the lower burden of showing that it was merely one factor.

The ruling made age discrimination cases harder for employees to prove. Some members of Congress, however, were dissatisfied with the result in Gross and have introduced legislation that would overturn the case. They argue that the Court should have viewed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which proscribes age discrimination, like Title VII.

The bill is called the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, and would return the standard used in ADEA claims to that observed in other discrimination cases. According to the language of the bill, the Court’s decision in Gross not only ran contrary to Congressional intent, but also “circumvented well-established precedents.”

Although members of both parties have endorsed the bill, many do not believe it will become law. Congress attempted a similar measure soon after the Gross decision, but that bill failed to pass.

Source: Business Insurance, “Measure seeks to overturn age discrimination ruling,” Judy Greenwald, April 22, 2012.