Although I just wrote yesterday about the dangers of predicting the future, this was an easy one for me to predict. The New York Times reports that Democrats are working to overturn the latest Supreme Court case dealing with age discrimination. The case and ruling makes it harder for older workers to prove age discrimination. My guess is that the Supreme Court ruling was a practical one, wanting to avoid having the courts overwhelmed with layoff cases alleging age. It would also seem easy to predict that the Democrats will pass legislation overturning the decision in the case of Gross v FBL Financial.
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Democratic Legislation on Age Bias
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Dennis, I brought this, shifting of burden of proof from the employer to the employee, to your attention at the time of the ruling and you seemed to think it had little impact on the way the law had previously been interpreted. I think it is indeed quite impractical to set a precedent giving corporations and other employers greater impunity in violating the law for the expedience of the moment. Rather, this is an ideological expression of laissez-faire doctrine, which having been seminally championed again by the likes of Reagan, has recently brought us the wonderful gifts of near financial collapse and high unemployment (to name just two of its gifts).
Your power of prediction must be based on moral hopefulness! Am I not right?
Judging, and balancing, the required burden of proof in discrimination cases of any kind is a tough call, regardless of type of discrimination involved. Certainly, the burden cannot rest solely with the employer, nor solely with the employee, for under those conditions it then becomes discrimination by the courts on behalf of the most extensively resourced!
Is a ruling based on the pragmatics of the situation (i.e., concluding that reducing the burden of proof for complainants will flood the courts) “fair”? Yes and no. From a *pure* justice perspective, perhaps not. On the other hand, justice delayed is justice denied, so anything that permits the courts to hear more of the right kind of cases CAN ultimately work in favour of those who rely on the moral support of legal cases to shelter them against possible discrimination.
Ultimately, what is required is a clear template, in layperson’s terms, for what constitutes age discrimination, and what is normally needed to recognize it and support claims. Legal judgments in pdf form are fine for legal counsel, but not necessarily for those who find themselves on the receiving end of discrimination.