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The Supreme Court on 4/1/02 dismissed this appeal. The lower court's decision stands. The Supreme Court was to decide whether a plaintiff can sue under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) for age discrimination on the grounds that a facially neutral policy of the employer has a disparate or uneven impact on people age 40 and above. This case involves a series of terminations that the plaintiffs alleged impacted older employees more than younger ones. The Eleventh Circuit agreed with the lower court that these types of "disparate impact" claims are not covered under the ADEA. Although such claims are covered under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for other kinds of discrimination, the court found that the ADEA specifically allows an employer to take action based on "reasonable factors other than age." Other courts of appeals are widely divergent on how to handle disparate impact claims under the ADEA. The Eleventh Circuit's ruling means that employees may still be able to prove that an employer actually discriminated on account of age, but they may not simply rely on statistics showing that the burden of a particular policy falls disproportionately on older workers.