Source: law/NOTES-29usc623.md
# ADEA core catalogue research — 29 USC 621–634 Replaces the rejected draft and notes. Research date: 2026-11-10. Catalogue anchor: `title29_sec623`, sha1 `b59f5e38ae776db621b64c5b581095e0de3ff128`, 29,783 characters. All `text` fields quote that immutable record; all `rule` fields quote immutable local opinions. Cross-section summaries are `xref`/annotation, not fabricated §623 text pins. ## Scope and statutory map This is a core employer/agency/union catalogue anchored to §623, with enforcement and coverage cross-references. It is not a complete pension actuarial model or federal-sector litigation catalogue. The local IR has §§621, 623, 626, 631; lookup confirmed no records for the other listed sections. Missing local records were checked against official OLRC section pages; they were not imported into or substituted for the corpus. | Section | Function and treatment | |---|---| | [621](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s621/) | Findings/purpose; interpretive context, not an independent damages claim. Local text read 0..1290, sha1 `a3783330dab96c93eeb44f7337264b47fe15f340`. | | [622](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s622/) | Education/research and recommendations to Congress. | | [623](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s623/) | Substantive employer, agency, union, retaliation and advertising prohibitions; exceptions, foreign control and specialized benefit/pension rules. | | [624](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s624/) | Secretary of Labor study/report provisions about involuntary retirement; historical reporting dates do not set present liability elements. | | [625](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s625/) | Administration, delegation, cooperation and technical assistance; transfer-of-functions notes matter. | | [626](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s626/) | Investigation, enforcement, remedies, civil action/jury, charges, notice deadline and knowing-voluntary waivers. Local text read 0..3500; sha1 `b027ea0b565793903625e0c73da4581c7a35f2ca`, 8749 chars. | | [627](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s627/) | Posting notices on premises. Separate from §623(e)'s prohibition on discriminatory advertisements. | | [628](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s628/) | EEOC rulemaking and reasonable public-interest exemptions. | | [629](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s629/) | Criminal interference with EEOC representatives; not a criminal penalty for every age-discrimination violation. | | [630](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s630/) | Definitions and entity/employee coverage. Private employer threshold is twenty workers for twenty weeks; government-employer branch is separate. | | [631](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s631/) | Forty-or-older floor; special §631(c) bona fide executive/high policymaker compulsory retirement exception has age, service and pension conditions. Local complete text read 0..2201, sha1 `404f6d7fb71c101944d49b4fbd42afc6e4dc7004`. | | [632](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s632/) | Omitted; former annual-report requirement terminated effective May 15, 2000. No operative merits element. | | [633](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s633/) | Federal/state relationship and deferral-state commencement/waiting rules. | | [633a](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s633a/) | Separate federal-government personnel-action regime, administrative/civil enforcement and direct-suit notice route. | | [634](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s634/) | Authorization of appropriations. It is not a severability clause. | The OLRC pages consulted report currency through PL 119-138 (November 3, 2026), with some cached pages through PL 119-136 (October 22). This is a versioned corpus catalogue with a targeted current-law check, not a claim that every historical annotation is current. ## Statute versus judicial doctrine Section 623 supplies prohibited practices and textual exceptions. Courts supply the treatment/impact distinction, Gross but-for interpretation, proof frameworks, statistical causation, retaliation adversity test and filing accrual rules. The claims therefore keep intentional treatment, impact/RFOA and retaliation separate. McDonnell Douglas is not a mandatory pleading recital. RFOA is an affirmative defense with employer persuasion, not the Title VII business-necessity test. Kleber's employee/applicant boundary and O’Brien's subgroup treatment are labeled circuit-specific. [Mount Lemmon v. Guido](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-587_n7ip.pdf) confirms state/local coverage without the twenty-worker minimum. Coverage must still be separated from sovereign immunity. [Babb v. Wilkie](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-882_3ebh.pdf) requires federal personnel decisionmaking free of age discrimination: age need not change the ultimate outcome for liability, but outcome-related relief requires but-for causation. Therefore the private/nonfederal Gross claim is not reused for §633a. Section 633a(d)'s direct-suit route requires notice within 180 days and at least thirty days before filing; administrative-route procedures differ. Round 5 now models the §623(i)(1) pension prohibition with its conditional subsection (i) safeguards, §623(j) public-safety and §631(c) executive-retirement exceptions. Full (l)-(n) benefits coordination and detailed (i)(10) actuarial/conversion claims remain explicitly excluded in the displayed catalogue-scope block. Retaliation's ultimate causation must be checked in the controlling jurisdiction; the pinned Davis-Garett holding specifically establishes material adversity, not a relaxed causation rule. ## Local opinion reading record Windows are Unicode character offsets into unmodified canonical IR text, not search-result excerpts. These are substantive reading windows, not claims to have read every opinion in full. Rule pins select intact holdings/tests from those windows. Case SHA-1 values pin the exact corpus version. - **[Westmoreland v. TWC Administration, 924 F.3d 718 (4th Cir. 2019)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_924/0718_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/924/0718-01`), sha1 `fc2c15a9fb638a09b79c2b663ed54a7bbc3e0cb7`, 42225 characters. Read 8345..11844; 14495..20395; rule pins 8471..9075. Gross but-for treatment rule; circumstantial McDonnell Douglas stages preserve plaintiff persuasion. Rejection of pretext-plus permits jury inference from discredited explanation; the grandbabies remark is evidence, not a legal element. - **[Wrolstad v. CUNA Mutual, 911 F.3d 450 (7th Cir. 2018)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_911/0450_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/911/0450-01`), sha1 `189fbd9e1fc14a68063fc8fc54e7a3d6e343602e`, 25128 characters. Read 6920..10902; 14928..18521; rule pins 9406..9499, 16385..16759. Forty-plus protection and but-for treatment; retirement waiver enforcement threat gave unequivocal notice triggering charge accrual. Its 300 days depends on the deferral setting, not a universal deadline. - **[Davis-Garett v. Urban Outfitters, 921 F.3d 30 (2d Cir. 2019)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_921/0030_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/921/0030-01`), sha1 `06970ca642fd2f30a4479465da86c20d0d558068`, 54477 characters. Read 25566..28866; 35121..39254; rule pins 36726..37086. Reverses use of substantive adverse-employment test for retaliation; Burlington Northern asks whether material action could deter a reasonable worker. - **[Kleber v. CareFusion, 914 F.3d 480 (7th Cir. 2019) (en banc)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_914/0480_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/914/0480-01`), sha1 `26234b6a0ca7613aa62c8c15554c130dae3a07a2`, 60000 characters. Read 0..7545; rule pins 2643..2746. Outside applicant cannot bring §623(a)(2) impact claim in this circuit; distinct treatment claim voluntarily dismissed. The 60,000-character IR is truncated; only majority opening reasoning is used, not later dissent. - **[O’Brien v. Caterpillar, 900 F.3d 923 (7th Cir. 2018)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_900/0923_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/900/0923-01`), sha1 `20459a2f3fef7d91bfce81f4d533e5530a1e2fab`, 26734 characters. Read 10000..21000; 25082..26734; rule pins 11615..11829, 13216..13685, 19946..20847. Identifiable liquidation rule and significant age disparity establish impact prima facie case; reasonable financial and labor objectives establish RFOA. Distinguishes age/pension status and treatment/impact. - **[Teufel v. Northern Trust, 887 F.3d 799 (7th Cir. 2018)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_887/0799_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/887/0799-01`), sha1 `cae2aa6edda80eb53620ce9c88010a7bbd793363`, 11422 characters. Read 0..11422 (complete IR); rule pins 10243..10328. Pension accrual under §623(i), not generalized age correlation, governs; compliant age-neutral service/salary formula defeats ADEA challenge. ERISA anti-cutback is a different statute. ## Verification and limits `python3 neov2/tools/lawdsl.py check neov2/law/29usc623.law`: initial verification: zero errors; 23 statutory and 9 case quotes. Round 5 counts supersede this historical baseline below. Six distinct relevant local citing opinions. Quotes and source hashes are mechanical evidence; legal adequacy remains subject to separate QA2 review. No source corpus text changed. No blanket nationwide prediction or complete pension/federal-sector remedial model is claimed. ## Round 5 adversarial repair (2026-11-10) Re-read canonical §623, including (c)(1)-(3), (f), (i) and (j), and complete canonical §631 (0..2201). Checked [official §623](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s623/), [§630](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s630/) and [§631](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t29/s631/) against the unchanged corpus. These OLRC pages report PL 119-138 currency. This is a core catalogue, not a complete §§621–634 liability engine. - **Route conditions:** `f-exceptions` and `f-route` link the statutory (a)/(b)/(c)/(e) routes to the applicable BFOQ, foreign-law, seniority/benefits and RFOA branches. The [current 29 CFR 1625.7(a)-(d)](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-XIV/part-1625/subpart-A/section-1625.7) expressly makes RFOA unavailable for disparate treatment or an age-limited practice. Its presence in the conditional gate therefore does not excuse intentional age discrimination. The agency/union formulas also carry the discharge/discipline-only good-cause defense; retaliation is excluded from the f(1)/(2) gate and now actually includes agency/union defendants in its formula. - **Seniority/benefits:** Full f(2) paragraphs now have exact individual pins. Corrected the old summary's overbroad failure-to-hire restriction: that restriction is expressly attached to f(2)(B), while f(2)(A)'s seniority system has its own evasion and retirement limits. Defendant persuasion remains explicit. Teufel's valid rule pin was moved from f(2) to `pension-safeguards`, where it actually supports (i)(4) compliance. - **Pensions:** Added `pension-accrual`, with independent `covered-plan-actor` employer/agency/union coverage, age coverage, establishment/maintenance and both (i)(1)(A)/(B) alternatives. The separate `pension-safeguards` block identifies the (i)(2)-(10) conditional rules; f(1)/(2) do not become universal pension exemptions. - **Public safety:** Full (j) text is pinned, including covered governmental employers, qualifying occupations, the 1983 or post-1996 age alternatives, the post-1996 discharge age floor, and a bona fide non-subterfuge plan. [Public Law 104-208, pp. 3009–23 to 3009–25](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-104publ208/pdf/PLAW-104publ208.pdf) confirms both the intervening-law restriction and testing condition. OLRC's reference note says the statute's §3(d)(2) reference probably means §119[2(d)(2)]. The fitness-test opportunity is triggered by issuance of the identified HHS regulations; this audit does not assert that those regulations issued. - **Executives:** Added `executive-retirement` cross-referencing §631(c): age 65, immediately preceding two years in the specified position, immediate nonforfeitable $44,000 annual employer benefit, and annuity/contribution adjustments. It applies only to compulsory retirement. - **Applicant coverage:** `impact-applicant-limit` remains the stable ID but is now an `element` governed by `applicant-coverage`, not a statutory `exception` unconditionally negated in the formula. [Kleber's official en banc opinion](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca7-17-01206/pdf/USCOURTS-ca7-17-01206-1.pdf), pp. 2–5, confirms the Seventh Circuit holding and its reliance on the Eleventh Circuit's Villarreal. Other jurisdictions require controlling-law analysis. The leader authorized a narrow CASE classification correction: the existing Kleber block keyword changes from `defense` to `element`, preserving its ID, outcome, basis and every quotation. Only the ADEA variants catalogue is regenerated; the initial kind warning is eliminated. - **Union scope:** Added separate exact c(2) and c(3) statutory spans to the existing `union-practice` ID and made its alternatives explicit with `or`. - **Correct source identification:** QA1's “Pelcha” label is a reviewer error. The valid `/f3d/924/0718-01 @8471..9075` remains **Westmoreland**. The [official Fourth Circuit opinion](https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/181600.P.pdf), pp. 6–8, also states the proof stages that the old protocol gloss incorrectly said no cited case supplied. Added exact local protocol paragraphs at 10698..11145 and 11146..11651; source hash unchanged. This is circuit proof practice, not a universal pleading recital. Remaining limits: full (l)-(n) specialist benefits rules; complete hybrid actuarial/conversion analysis; federal-sector §633a; comprehensive foreign-employer/control and citizenship application; public-safety testing-trigger research in an actual dispute; current negative-treatment history beyond these targeted checks. These are now displayed boundaries, not assertions of complete statutory coverage. See [R5-CIVIL.md](R5-CIVIL.md) for final verification.