On June 19th, 2008, the United States Supreme Court ruled for older workers in an age discrimination case that assigned employers the responsibility of providing proof that layoffs or other actions that disproportionately affect older workers are not based on age, but on some other “reasonable factor.” The Supreme Court’s 7-1 decision overturned a ruling by the federal appeals court in New York that charged employees with the burden of disproving the employers’ defense that their actions were based on reasonable factors.

The case was brought by 28 former employees of Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory located in upstate New York. In 1996, Knolls was required to reduce its workforce and managers were directed to evaluate their employees based on values such as “performance,” “flexibility,” and “critical skills.” Knolls subsequently laid off 31 employees, 30 of which were over the age of 40, the age at which protection begins under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

The Supreme Court’s ruling will inevitably make it more difficult for employers to defend themselves against allegations of violations of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, but as Justice David. H. Souter states in his writing of the majority opinion, the statute made it clear that the defense was “entirely the responsibility of the party raising it.”