State Courts Consider Small Business Thresholds under Age Discrimination Laws
In a recent case, the Utah Supreme Court held that a fired clinic physician could not proceed with an age discrimination suit under the Utah Anti-Discrimination Act (“UADA”) because the clinic from which he was dismissed employed fewer than 15 individuals. Despite the appearance of clear age discrimination as evidenced by the clinic’s president stating he “didn’t know how much longer you older guys wanted to work” and “couldn’t pass up this opportunity to employ a full-time physician,” Utah relied on similar California Supreme Court reasoning in determining that the UADA did not apply to this particular age discrimination case due to the small work force employed by the clinic.
However, many states, including Maryland, Washington, and West Virginia, have decided to interpret their age discrimination and sexual discrimination statutes more broadly. These states have focused on aspects of the law such as Marlyand’s general prohibition of discrimination by any employer or a simple determination that the statute itself creates a clear public policy against any form of discrimination. The Ohio Supreme Court also bypassed the language in their state’s law that only prohibited employment discrimination for employers of four or more persons by finding that the statute did not preempt any public policy based claims of sexual discrimination.
The message here is clear: even if a state statute may attempt limit age discrimination or any other form of employment discrimination to larger employees, state supreme courts have proved willing to overlook these restrictions based on public policy. Furthermore, it seems feasible that, if enough states decide to go down this path, the United States Supreme Court may at some point in time decide that public policy concerns trump the restrictions established by the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
