The United States Supreme Court has issued several decisions that will impact employers.


First, regarding an age discrimination claim, the court has ruled that a charge questionnaire filed by an employee with a civil rights agency may be enough to actually be a filed charge. This decision poses the possibility that a wider range of documents filed with such agencies, short of formal charge documents, will have to be considered by the agencies, most of which now face charge backlogs.

Second, in another age discrimination case, the Court has ruled that courts can allow, but must carefully consider whether to allow, so-called “me too” evidence, i.e. evidence of another employee who also has claimed that the employer is biased in a context unrelated to the pending lawsuit (e.g. involving other employees, other supervisors and another department of the employer).

Finally, the court has expanded the type of lawsuit that can be filed regarding retirement benefits. The Court ruled that a 401(k) plan participant may sue to recover losses allegedly caused by a plan’s failure to properly implement investment directions. The plaintiff in that case claimed that the plan’s investors had not followed his directions on how to invest his 401(k) funds and thus should be liable for the related losses.