Law Commons^™

Transparency And Reliance In Antidiscrimination Law, Steven L. Willborn

Catholic University Law Review

All antidiscrimination laws have two structural features – transparency and reliance – that are important, even central, to their design, but have gone largely unnoticed. On transparency, some laws, like the recent salary-ban laws, attempt to prevent the employer from learning about the disfavored factor on the theory that an employer cannot rely on an unknown factor. Other laws require publication of the disfavored factor, such as salary, on the theory that it is harder to discriminate in the sunlight. Still other laws are somewhere between these two extremes. The Americans with Disabilities Act, for example, limits but does not …

It's Alright, Ma, It's Life And Life Only: Have Universities Been Meeting Their Legal Obligations To High-Risk Faculty During The Pandemic?, Gary J. Simson, Mark L. Jones, Cathren K. Page, Suzianne D. Painter-Thorne

Pepperdine Law Review

Even those universities most firmly committed to returning to in-person instruction in fall semester 2020 recognized that for health reasons some exceptions would need to be made. The CDC had identified two groups—people age sixty-five and over and people with certain medical conditions—as persons "at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19," and it had spelled out various special precautions they should take to avoid contracting the virus. Given the CDC's unique stature, universities very reasonably could have been expected to grant exceptions to faculty falling into either group, but that's not what many universities did. We argue that, properly …

Does The Adea's Federal-Sector Provision Require A Plaintiff To Prove That Age Was A But-For Cause Of The Challenged Personnel Action?, Anne M. Lofaso

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Discrimination Law: The New Franken-Tort, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This article was part of the Clifford Symposium in Tort Law. The article discusses how the Supreme Court has used tort law to define certain elements of discrimination law, but has not described all of the elements of this new tort. The article is the first one to try to piece together the new "tort" created by the Supreme Court.

Retaliation And The Reasonable Person, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

When a worker complains about discrimination, federal law is supposed to protect that worker from later retaliation. Recent scholarly attention focuses on how courts limit retaliation claims by narrowly framing the causation inquiry. A larger threat to retaliation law is developing in the lower courts. Courts are declaring a wide swath of conduct as insufficiently serious to constitute retaliation.

Many courts hold that it is legal for an employer to threaten to fire a worker, to place the worker on administrative leave, or to negatively evaluate the worker because she complained about discriminatory conduct. Even if the worker has evidence …

The Tort Label, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Courts and commentators often label federal discrimination statutes as torts. Since the late 1980s, the courts increasingly applied tort concepts to these statutes. This Article discusses how courts placed employment discrimination law within the organizational umbrella of tort law without examining whether the two areas share enough theoretical and doctrinal affinities.

While discrimination statutes are torts in some general sense that they do not arise out of criminal law and are not solely contractual, it is far from clear that these statutes are enough like traditional torts to justify the reflexive and automatic use of tort law. Employment discrimination statutes …

Let's Pretend Discrimination Is A Tort, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In the past decade, the Supreme Court has repeatedly invoked tort common law to interpret federal discrimination statutes. During this same time period, the Supreme Court increasingly invoked textualism as the appropriate methodology for interpreting these statutes. One immediate effect of these two trends - tortification and textualism - is to restrict discrimination law by tightening causal standards.

This Article explores how interpreting discrimination statutes through the lenses of tort law and textualism can expand, rather than restrict, discrimination law. It assumes that courts will continue to characterize discrimination statutes as torts and as deriving from the common law, despite …

Torts And Civil Rights Law: Migration And Conflict: Symposium Introduction, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Curiously, the connection between civil rights and civil wrongs has not been a topic that has captivated the attention of large numbers of legal scholars over the years. The distance that has developed between the two fields likely reflects their placement on opposite sides of the public-private divide, with Title VII and other anti-discrimination statutes forming part of public law, while torts is a classic, private law subject. To compound the division, both subjects are to some extent still under-theorized. Employment discrimination scholarship is often caught up in the process of analyzing the doctrinal implications of the latest Supreme Court …

Civil Rights Litigation From The October 2007 Term, Martin A. Schwartz

Martin A. Schwartz

No abstract provided.

Employment Discrimination: Recent Developments In The Supreme Court (The Supreme Court And Local Government Law: The 1994-1995 Term), Eileen Kaufman

Eileen Kaufman

No abstract provided.

Procedural Extremism: The Supreme Court's 2008-2009 Labor And Employment Cases, Melissa Hart

Publications

It has become nearly a commonplace to say that the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts is a court of “incrementalism.” The 2008 Term, however, featured several opinions that showcase the procedural extremism of the current conservative majority. In a series of sharply divided decisions, the Court re-shaped the law that governs the workplace - or more specifically the law that governs whether and how employees will be permitted access to the courts to litigate workplace disputes. At least as important as the Court’s changes to the substantive legal standards are the procedural hurdles the five …

Civil Rights Litigation From The October 2007 Term, Martin A. Schwartz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Watch, Reginald Oh

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Oh discusses how the U.S. Supreme Court, in General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc. v. Cline, 124 S. Ct. 1236 (2004), settled a circuit court conflict over the viability of "reverse age discriminations" claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The Court, in a 6-3 decision, held that statutorily protected workers over the age of forty may not bring an ADEA claim alleging that their employer discriminated against them in favor of older employees.

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other: Analogizing Ageism To Racism In Employment Discrimination Cases, Rhonda M. Reaves

Journal Publications

The development of anti-discrimination law in the employment context was designed and applied with the elimination of race discrimination in mind. The expansion of anti-discrimination law to older workers has taken place within a legal system that encourages groups to present themselves as "similar to" African Americans. This article explores the difficulty of applying general anti-discrimination principles to the uniquely positioned group of older workers.

The Replacement Dilemma: An Argument For Eliminating A Non-Class Replacement Requirement In The Prima Facie Stage Of Title Vii Individual Disparate Treatment Discrimination Claims, Marla Swartz

Michigan Law Review

Although manifestations of discrimination in the workplace have changed greatly over time, employment discrimination continues to be a tremendous problem in society. By enacting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), Congress shielded employees from arbitrary adverse employment actions arising from discrimination related to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Three years later, Congress passed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), guaranteeing the same protections against discrimination based on age.4 Finally, the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), passed in 1990, prohibited discrimination based on personal disability. Ten years after Congress enacted the Civil Rights …

Envisioning A Future For Age And Disability Discrimination Claims, Alison Barnes

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article considers the reasons for reinterpretations of age and disability and examines the fundamental reasons for changes in the implementation of both the ADA and ADEA. Part I presents the basic structure and relevant requirements of the two statutes and comments on the reasons their legislative purposes are not often seen as overlapping. Part II discusses the recent Supreme Court decisions that have undermined the purposes and implementation of both the ADA and ADEA and chilled causes of action based on the ADA and ADEA. Part III projects the current problems with anti-discrimination causes into the future, when older …

Litigating Age And Disability Claims Against State And Local Government Employers In The New "Federalism" Era, Ivan E. Bodensteiner, Rosalie Levinson

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Uniform Standard For Exemplary Damages In Employment Discrimination Cases, Judith J. Johnson

University of Richmond Law Review

The standards for exemplary damages in employment discrimination cases are in disarray. The major federal provisions that prohibit private employment discrimination, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"),2 42 U.S.C. § 1981 ("§ 1981"), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), and the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), all have an indistinguishably worded standard for assessing exemplary damages: "reckless indifference to federally protected rights."

Unprotected Until Forty: The Limited Scope Of The Age Discrimination In Employment Act Of 1967, Bryan B. Woodruff

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Adea Claimant Can Retain Severance Payments And Sue Former Employer, Susan J. Becker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Former employees can maintain claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) without first repaying the consideration received for an invalid release of claims. The Supreme Court's pronouncement, Oubre v. Entergy Operations, Inc., 1988 U.S. Lexis 646 (Jan. 26, 1998), may change the way many employers negotiate and execute severance packages and settlements with terminated employees.

The Adea In The Wake Of Seminole, Edward P. Noonan

University of Richmond Law Review

Everyone, regardless of their sex or race, has at least one thing in common, we all get older. Nonetheless, attitudes about our elders in society differ depending on the context. Sometimes the aged are considered wise; other times they are considered incompetent. In 1967, Congress attempted to combat age discrimination in the workplace with the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA or the Act). Congress found that older Americans faced "disadvantages in their efforts to retain employment" which consisted of arbitrary age limits on employment notwithstanding that person's skill and job performance. Further, Congress prohibited arbitrary age discrimination in a …

Employment Law: Mckennon V. Nashville Banner Publishing Co. And After-Acquired Evidence--A Convincing Resolution To Employer/Employee Misconduct Or An Incomplete Assessment Of The Issue?, William D. Fisher

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Discrimination, Deceit, And Legal Decoys: The Diversion Of After-Acquired Evidence And The Focus Restored By Mckennon V. Nashville Banner Publishing Company, Elissa J. Preheim

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Employment Discrimination: Recent Developments In The Supreme Court (The Supreme Court And Local Government Law: The 1994-1995 Term), Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Checking The "Trigger-Happy" Congress: The Extraterritorial Extension Of Federal Employment Laws Requires Prudence, Derek G. Barella

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Employment Discrimination: Recent Developments In The Supreme Court, Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Charge-Filing Requirement Of The Age Discrimination In Employment Act: Accrual And Equitable Modification, Jim Beall

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that ADEA causes of action should accrue when the plaintiff discovers, or reasonably should have discovered, that she has been injured by an adverse employment action such as discharge, demotion, denial of a position or promotion, or receipt of pay lower than employees doing the same job. Courts should equitably modify the filing period for the time in which the plaintiff reasonably failed to file a charge even though she already knew of the adverse employment action. Such a situation arises largely in two contexts: (1) when an employer engages in active misconduct that keeps the plaintiff …

The Recent Respectability Of Summary Judgments And Directed Verdicts In Intentional Age Discrimination Cases: Adea Case Analysis Through The Supreme Court's Summary Judgment Prism, Frank J. Cavaliere

Cleveland State Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to review recent Supreme Court "guidance" on standards for summary judgment and directed verdict and the effect these decisions are having upon ADEA cases.

Judicial And Administrative Interpretations Of The Bona Fide Occupational Qualification As Applied To The Age Discrimination In Employment Act, Tracy Karen Finkelstein

Cleveland State Law Review

This note will examine administrative and judicial standards used to prevent age discrimination in employment decisions. The first section will analyze the ADEA, enacted in response to the growing concern about age discrimination. The second section will discuss the Bona Fide Occupational Qualification exception to the ADEA's prohibition against age discrimination. Finally, the concerns particular to the airline industry regarding its age-related policies will be presented together with the responses of the FAA, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the judiciary in an attempt to clarify and resolve the difficulties inherent in situations where safety is a major concern.

Two (Federal) Wrongs Make A (State) Right: State Class Action Procedures As An Alternative To The Opt-In Class Action Provisions Of The Adea, Janet M. Bowermaster

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article argues that the opt-in class action of the ADEA is an anachronism and that age-discrimination litigants can take advantage of the broader protection afforded to Title VII litigants by bringing their ADEA suits as Rule 23 class actions in state courts. A comparison of the two statutes reveals similar purposes and nearly identical substantive provisions, but procedural provisions that provide less protection to victims of age discrimination, including widely disparate class-action provisions.