The impact of the Supreme Court's decision in Smith v. City of Jackson (2005) is trickling back down through the court system. This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a post-remand decision in Meacham et al. v. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory. The Meacham action involved an ADEA claim on behalf of some 30 employees, all over the age of 40, who had lost employment during a reduction in force at the Laboratory. A jury verdict was rendered in favor of the plaintiffs. Defendant moved for judgment as a matter of law. The U.S. Magistrate Judge presiding over the matter denied the motion. The Second Circuit affirmed the denial of the defendant's motion, leaving the plaintiffs' verdict intact. Defendant's petition for certiorari was granted, and the matter remanded for reconsideration in light of the decision in City of Jackson.
The Second Circuit now reverses the decision below and grants defendant's motion for judgment as a matter of law. As before, the Court finds that plaintiffs carried their burden of establishing a prima facie case that the reduction in force violated the ADEA by adversely impacting older workers. The identification by the plaintiffs of the subjective nature of certain elements of the selection process was specific enough to meet their burden. Similarly, the Court adhered to its earlier view that the defendant had met its burden of articulating a "legitimate business justification" for the process used to select employees for termination.
Applying pre-City of Jackson standards, the Second Circuit had found that plaintiffs were entitled to prevail because they had met their burden of proving that the proffered justification failed the test of business necessity, i.e. that plaintiffs demonstrated at least one alternative process that would have had less adverse impact on the protected class. The City of Jackson decision, however, redefined plaintiffs' ultimate burden of prove, such that plaintiffs were now required to prove that defendant's selection process was "unreasonable." This greater burden was not met by the plaintiffs, holds the Second Circuit.
In Meacham, the Second Circuit recognized that the Supreme Court's analysis in City of Jackson requires that adverse impact claims alleging age discrimination must now be analyzed differently than such claims alleging discrimination on the basis of any of the other protected classifications.
