State High Court Expands Rights of Age Bias Claimants

SAN FRANCISCO — In a victory for older workers, the California Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that employees who are discriminated against on the basis of age have the same legal rights as victims of race and gender bias.

The 6-1 ruling opens another avenue for older workers to bring discrimination complaints when they are fired or demoted and sends a strong message that the state has a fundamental interest in preventing age bias in the workplace.

“With this ruling, age discrimination is put on a similar footing with race and gender,” said Antonio Lawson, who represented Altadena resident Joan Stevenson in the case.

At the age of 60, Stevenson lost a clerical job she had held for 30 years. Because of what she called poor legal advice from a previous attorney, she failed to file a complaint with a state agency alleging age discrimination. A lower court had held that that administrative step was required before she could charge age bias in a lawsuit.

The court’s ruling makes it possible for victims to proceed directly to the courts. “I am sure there are many people in my situation,” Stevenson said Wednesday.

But employment lawyer William Quackenbush, who presented arguments on behalf of Stevenson as a friend of the court, said the ruling’s practical effects are less important than the court’s message.

Robert M. Dato, who represents the employer in the case, called the ruling “very significant.”

“Age is taking a big step forward by virtue of this decision,” he said.

Unlike most state high courts, California’s has now held that the right not to experience age discrimination in the workplace is as important as the right to freedom from race or gender bias, Quackenbush said.

“It sends a message that age discrimination is not going to be tolerated in any form,” he said. “That message is more important that the technical effects.”

The ruling follows a lower appeals court decision that employers could fire older workers to save money. An appeal of that decision to the state Supreme Court is expected.

“Chronological age alone is not a reliable measure of any individual’s vitality or ability,” wrote Justice Joyce L. Kennard for the Supreme Court, “and many individuals remain robust and productive well past the normal retirement age.”

Joining Kennard were Chief Justice Ronald George and Justices Kathryn M. Werdegar and Stanley Mosk. Justice Marvin Baxter agreed that Stevenson should be allowed to sue but disagreed with part of the majority’s analysis. Justice Janice Rogers Brown dissented.

Age discrimination, Kennard wrote, “violates the basic principle that each person should be judged on the basis of individual merit.” Like race and sex, age is not a matter of choice, she wrote.

“Age discrimination attacks the individual’s sense of self-worth in much the same fashion as race or sex discrimination,” Kennard said.

Justice Brown, however, contended that age was not an “immutable” characteristic like race and gender.

“Unlike race and sex, the various prohibitions against age discrimination arise not from any fundamental character, but from the realization more and more [that} the population needs such protection,” wrote Brown. “In reality, as baby boomers grow older, our society is becoming as solicitous of age as we once were fascinated by youth and beauty.”

The court’s decision will affect businesses with five or more workers and employees more than 40 years old. Before the ruling, age discrimination victims could sue only if they first filed a complaint with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

The flexibility the ruling now gives victims is less significant than the statement the court is making, lawyers agreed.

“This is at odds with rulings in virtually every other state and a complete surprise in light of the decisions coming from the [state] Supreme Court during the last decade,” said lawyer Steven Drapkin, who represents employers.

Jeffrey Berman, a lawyer who heads a committee for The Employers Group, an association of 5,000 employers in the state, complained that the ruling creates uncertainty and raises the prospect that other classifications, like disability or marital status, may someday be elevated in legal status.

By allowing workers to take their complaints directly to court, the justices have also undermined the chance that the state agency could help mediate a dispute without a lawsuit, he said.

Stevenson, 65, had been a clerical worker at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena. Before she was terminated in 1992, she had taken a hospital-approved medical leave for back problems. She said that when she returned, she was told her job was no longer available and a younger woman had been hired in her place.

Divorced with grown children, she said she had to move out of her Altadena home and rent it out to make mortgage payments. She began living with various family members and tried but failed to get another job, she said.

“I hope you are never in that situation,” she said. “It is not easy.”

But Huntington Hospital lawyer Dato said Stevenson lost her job not because of her age but because she failed to return to work from her medical leave when she was required. Her case will now go to trial, he said.

The Supreme Court decision overturns a ruling by a Court of Appeal in Los Angeles, which reluctantly held that Stevenson could not sue the hospital over age bias because the law appeared to bar such claims unless victims followed the state administrative route.

Stevenson could have proceeded with a lawsuit for breach of employment contract. But without the age discrimination allegation, she would not have been entitled to compensation for emotional distress and punitive damages if she prevailed.

The appellate court pleaded with the Supreme Court to review Stevenson’s case because of its ramifications for older workers.

“We live in a time of rising life expectancy, a rapidly expanding older population and the desire, necessity and practice of many older individuals to remain active in the work force. . . ,” wrote Court of Appeal Justice Joan Dempsey Klein, who is 73. “We respectfully urge the Supreme Court to explore further this troubling area of the law at its next opportunity.”