Age Discrimination

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Aaron Carson, et al. v. Lake County, Indiana

Case No.: 16-3665

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and FLAUM and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Age Discrimination

A group of rehired retirees who were fired in October 2013 filed this suit alleging that the County had discriminated against them on the basis of their age in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 29 U.S.C §§ 621 et seq., and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The district court granted summary judgment to the County.

Although plaintiffs’ claims arise under the ADEA and the Equal Protection Clause, those claims (and the County’s actions that precipitated the claims) cannot be analyzed properly without understanding some basics of health insurance law. Federal law requires group health insurance plans such as those sponsored by employers to comply with a host of terms governing portability, coverage, rating, renewability, and non-discrimination. Many of these requirements were put in place as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119 (2010). Others were imposed earlier under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), Pub. L. No. 104-191, 110 Stat. 1936, or prior legislation.

We affirm. We see no evidence that the County engaged in unlawful age discrimination. Age was a necessary but insufficient factor in the County’s decision-making process. The key criterion that distinguished the terminated employees from all other County employees was not their age but rather their participation in the Aetna plan. The equal protection claim fails because the undisputed facts show that the County’s action was rationally related to a legitimate state interest: preserving supplemental insurance coverage for its retirees while avoiding further financial hardship.

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.