The League of Iowa
Human & Civil Rights Agencies

Three Democratic Congressional committee chairmen said Tuesday that they would move to overturn a four-month-old Supreme Court ruling that made it significantly harder for workers to win many age discrimination cases. The three chairmen criticized the court’s decision in a case involving a 54-year-old man who was demoted, saying the ruling flouted Congress’s intent and created unfair obstacles to the victims of age discrimination. In a 5-to-4 ruling last June, the Supreme Court created a tougher burden of proof for plaintiffs in age bias cases. Previously, if an employee could prove that age was a factor in an adverse employment decision, like a demotion or a layoff, the employer then had to show that it had acted for a valid reason other than age discrimination. But as a result of the June ruling, employees now face the full burden of demonstrating that age was the deciding factor.

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