O'Brien v. Caterpillar Inc. — 900 F.3d 923 (2018) · United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · 2018

Role: applied; posture: appellate review of summary judgment in benefits liquidation case; result: claimant-lost; claim:

Uncertainty

None recorded

Misfit

The prima facie impact issues are satisfied while the employer’s affirmative defense defeats liability. A single case outcome must not overwrite these opposite-polarity element findings.

interpretation

Here the plaintiffs have specifically identified a cause for the disparate impact: Caterpillar's decision to condition benefits on retirement eligibility, a status strongly correlated with age. No more is required.

O'Brien v. Caterpillar Inc. — 900 F.3d 923 (2018) · United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · 2018 (29usc623: author: Astra4 · QA: PASS (QA2, neov2/qa/wave2-cases-QA2-crosscheck.md))

Here the plaintiffs have specifically identified a cause for the disparate impact: Caterpillar's decision to condition benefits on retirement eligibility, a status strongly correlated with age. No more is required.

Isolate the practice responsible for the disparity; workforce-wide age imbalance alone is insufficient. O’Brien held a benefits-liquidation rule applied to hundreds of employees actionable even though adopted once.

interpretation

A disparate-impact claim involves "employment practices that are facially neutral in their treatment of different groups but that in fact fall more harshly on one group than another." Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins , 507 U.S. 604, 609, 113 S.Ct. 1701, 123 L.Ed.2d 338 (1993) (quotation marks omitted). The plaintiffs must demonstrate a "significant" age-based disparity to establish a prima facie case. Karlo v. Pittsburgh Glass Works, LLC , 849 F.3d 61, 69 (3d Cir. 2017).

O'Brien v. Caterpillar Inc. — 900 F.3d 923 (2018) · United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · 2018 (29usc623: author: Astra4 · QA: PASS (QA2, neov2/qa/wave2-cases-QA2-crosscheck.md))

A disparate-impact claim involves "employment practices that are facially neutral in their treatment of different groups but that in fact fall more harshly on one group than another." Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins , 507 U.S. 604, 609, 113 S.Ct. 1701, 123 L.Ed.2d 338 (1993) (quotation marks omitted). The plaintiffs must demonstrate a "significant" age-based disparity to establish a prima facie case. Karlo v. Pittsburgh Glass Works, LLC , 849 F.3d 61, 69 (3d Cir. 2017).

Statistical comparison must fit the affected labor pool and challenged practice. O’Brien recognizes older-subgroup comparisons within the over-forty class; do not present that circuit treatment as a universal rule.

interpretation

The plaintiffs have established a prima facie case, but Caterpillar raises an affirmative defense that its liquidation plan is based on a reasonable factor other than age. To prevail Caterpillar must show that its less favorable treatment of retirement-eligible employees was "reasonably designed to further or achieve a legitimate business purpose and administered in a way that reasonably achieves that purpose in light of the particular facts and circumstances that were known, or should have been known, to the employer." 29 C.F.R. § 1625.7(e)(1). This is a "relatively light burden." Karlo , 849 F.3d at 80. "Unlike the [Title VII] business necessity test, which asks whether there are other ways for the employer to achieve its goals that do not result in a disparate impact on a protected class, the reasonableness inquiry includes no such requirement." Smith , 544 U.S. at 243, 125 S.Ct. 1536.

O'Brien v. Caterpillar Inc. — 900 F.3d 923 (2018) · United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · 2018 (29usc623: author: Astra4 · QA: PASS (QA2, neov2/qa/wave2-cases-QA2-crosscheck.md))

The plaintiffs have established a prima facie case, but Caterpillar raises an affirmative defense that its liquidation plan is based on a reasonable factor other than age. To prevail Caterpillar must show that its less favorable treatment of retirement-eligible employees was "reasonably designed to further or achieve a legitimate business purpose and administered in a way that reasonably achieves that purpose in light of the particular facts and circumstances that were known, or should have been known, to the employer." 29 C.F.R. § 1625.7(e)(1). This is a "relatively light burden." Karlo , 849 F.3d at 80. "Unlike the [Title VII] business necessity test, which asks whether there are other ways for the employer to achieve its goals that do not result in a disparate impact on a protected class, the reasonableness inquiry includes no such requirement." Smith , 544 U.S. at 243, 125 S.Ct. 1536.

The employer bears production and persuasion on this affirmative defense (Meacham, 554 U.S. 84). Reasonableness differs from Title VII business necessity and does not demand the least discriminatory alternative. RFOA is not permission for intentional age discrimination.