In this case, a deputy sheriff for Jefferson County, Kentucky, became disabled and, under his employer’s retirement plan, was denied disability retirement benefits because he was old enough to qualify for normal retirement benefits. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Kentucky on his behalf, arguing that Kentucky’s disability retirement plan for public employees is facially discriminatory under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) in two ways: 1) it disqualifies currently working employees from receiving disability retirement benefits if they have reached normal retirement-benefit age by the time they become disabled; and 2) it provides less disability benefits to older disabled employees than to younger disabled employees based only on the factor of age. Kentucky argued that because disability retirement benefits serve the purpose of providing disabled employees with a replacement for the normal retirement benefits that they are no longer able to earn, denying those benefits to employees who already qualify for normal retirement benefits does not constitute “arbitrary” age discrimination in violation of the ADEA.
The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 on 6/19/08 that Kentucky's plan was not facially discriminatory because no discriminatory intent was shown. The differences in treatment of older workers in this case were not "actually motivated" by age, but rather stemmed from systemwide rules involving pensions, which the ADEA treats more flexibly and leniently in respect to age. Social Security is calculated using a formula that takes age into account, and employers may adopt retirement rules based on age. The plan did not involve age-related stereotypes.