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Supreme Court Blocks Reverse Age Discrimination Cases
By Gina Holland
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a law barring employers from discriminating against workers over 40 doesn't protect those same workers when employers give better benefits to their older colleagues.
The court, in the 6-3 decision, said a federal anti-discrimination law is meant to protect older workers from preferential treatment given to younger workers, but the law does not apply in reverse.
The case had been closely watched because about 70 million U.S. workers are 40 or older, roughly half the nation's work force. Workers 40 and older are protected by the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act, designed to stop employment age bias.
If the court had interpreted the law differently, companies could have been vulnerable to lawsuits from employees in their 40s or 50s, when they offered attractive retirement packages to workers in their 60s. <snip>
Justice David H. Souter, writing for the majority, agreed:"The statute does not mean to stop an employer from favoring an older employee over a younger one," he wrote.
<snip>
(in dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas,Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy)
<snip>Court (also) ruled that a Greece-based airline can be held responsible for the death of an asthmatic passenger who was seated near the smoking section. A judge had ordered Olympic Airways to pay $1.4 million to the family of Dr. Abid Hanson, 52, who suffered an asthma attack on a flight from Greece to New York in January 1998, after being exposed to second hand smoke.
The airline lost its argument that it was not liable under international treaties demanding compensation for those injured or killed during an "accident." The case is Olympic Airways v. Husain, 02-1348.
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