Supreme Court “fills in the blank” to recognize retaliation claims for federal employs under ADEA; Gomez-Perez v. Potter, 2008
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
5-27-08: The US Supreme Court in Gomez-Perez v. Potter, 128 S. Ct. 1931 (2008) ruled that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 29 U.S.C. ยง 621 et seq., prohibited retaliation against federal employees who had complained about age discrimination, even though the federal employee section of the ADEA did not expressly prohibit retaliation. This was a 6-3 decision. The majority opinion was written by Justice Alito, in which Justices Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Brewer joined. Justices Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas dissented, with dissenting opinions being written by Justices Roberts and Thomas.
The Gap In the Federal Employee Section of the ADEA
This was the problem under the ADEA: The ADEA’s main section, in prohibiting discrimination against employees 40 and older, only deals with private industry employees and state government employees. I will call this section of the ADEA, the “private and state employee sections”.