2012•Loyola of Los Angeles law reviewRequires access
What Is Old Is New Again: Understanding Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., And The Case Law That Has Saved Age Discrimination Law
Nancy L Zisk
Open publisher page 1 citations
Abstract
On March 13, 2012, Senators Tom Harkin, Patrick Leahy, and Chuck Grassley introduced a bill to protect older workers from discrimination.1 Their goal was to “revive vital civil rights protections for older workers that were limited following the Supreme Court’s decision in Gross v. FBL Financial.”2 In Gross, the Supreme Court separated age discrimination claims from other discrimination claims by holding that Title VII’s “mixed-motives” amendment does not apply to age discrimination claims—meaning that plaintiffs cannot prevail if they cannot prove that age was “the reason” for the employer’s challenged action. The Harkin bill marks Congress’s second effort to circumvent the Gross holding.4 However, because the future of this new bill is bleak, this Article offers a solution based on the body of case law that has developed