OCTOBER TERM, 1992

															Syllabus

															HAZEN PAPER CO. ET AL. v. BIGGINS

															CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST
CIRCUIT

															No. 91-1600. Argued January 13, 1993-Decided April 20, 1993

															Petitioners fired respondent Biggins when he was 62 years old
and apparently a few weeks short of the years of service he needed
for his pension to vest. In his ensuing lawsuit, a jury found, inter alia, a willful violation of the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), which gave rise to liquidated
damages. The District Court granted petitioners' motion for
judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the "willfulness" finding,
but the Court of Appeals reversed, giving considerable emphasis to
evidence of pension interference in upholding ADEA liability and
finding that petitioners' conduct was willful because, under the
standard of Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U. S. 111 ,
128, they knew or showed reckless disregard for the matter of
whether their conduct contravened the ADEA.

															Held:

															1. An employer does not violate the ADEA by interfering with an
older employee's pension benefits that would have vested by virtue
of the employee's years of service. In a disparate treatment case,
liability depends on whether the protected trait-under the ADEA,
age-actually motivated the employer's decision. When that decision
is wholly motivated by factors other than age, the problem that
prompted the ADEA's passage-inaccurate and stigmatizing stereotypes
about older workers' productivity and competence-disappears. Thus,
it would be incorrect to say that a decision based on years of
service-which is analytically distinct from age-is necessarily age
based. None of this Court's prior decisions should be read to mean
that an employer violates the ADEA whenever its reason for firing
an employee is improper in any respect. The foregoing holding does
not preclude the possibility of liability where an employer uses
pension status as a proxy for age, of dual liability under the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and the ADEA, or of
liability where vesting is based on age rather than years of
service. Because the Court of Appeals cited additional evidentiary
support for ADEA liability, this case is remanded for that court to
reconsider whether the jury had sufficient evidence to find such
liability. Pp. 608-614. 605 2. The Thurston "knowledge or reckless disregard"
standard for liquidated damages applies not only where the
predicate ADEA violation is a formal, facially discriminatory
policy, as in Thurston, but also where it is an informal
decision by the employer that was motivated by the employee's age.
Petitioners have not persuaded this Court that Thurston was
wrongly decided or that the Court should part from the rule of stare decisis. Applying the Thurston standard to
cases of individual discrimination will not defeat the two-tiered
system of liability intended by Congress. Since the ADEA affords an
employer a "bona fide occupational qualification" defense, and
exempts certain subject matters and persons, an employer could
incorrectly but in good faith and nonrecklessly believe that the
statute permits a particular age-based decision. Nor is there some
inherent difference between this case and Thurston to cause
a shift in the meaning of the word "willful." The distinction
between the formal, publicized policy in Thurston and the
undisclosed factor here is not such a difference, since an
employer's reluctance to acknowledge its reliance on the forbidden
factor should not cut against imposing a penalty. Once a
"willful" violation has been shown, the employee need not
additionally demonstrate that the employer's conduct was
outrageous, provide direct evidence of the employer's motivation,
or prove that age was the predominant, rather than a determinative,
factor in the employment decision. Pp. 614-617. 953 F.2d
1405 , vacated and remanded.

															O'CONNOR, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
KENNEDY, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C. J.,
and THOMAS, J., joined, post, p. 617. Robert B. Gordon argued the cause for petitioners. With
him on the briefs were John M. Harrington, Jr., and John
H. Mason. Maurice M. Cahillane, Jr., argued the cause for respondent. With
him on the briefs were John J. Egan, Edward J. McDonough, Jr., and
Eileen Z. Sorrentino. John R. Dunne argued the cause for the United States et
al. as amici curiae urging affirmance. With him on the brief
were Solicitor General Starr, Deputy Solicitor Gen- 606 eral Roberts, Edward C. DuMont, Donald R. Livingston, and
Gwendolyn Young Reams.*

															JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.

															In this case we clarify the standards for liability and
liquidated damages under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
of 1967 (ADEA), 81 Stat. 602, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 621 et
seq. I

															Petitioner Hazen Paper Company manufactures coated, laminated,
and printed paper and paperboard. The company is owned and operated
by two cousins, petitioners Robert Hazen and Thomas N. Hazen. The
Hazens hired respondent Walter F. Biggins as their technical
director in 1977. They fired him in 1986, when he was 62 years
old.

															Respondent brought suit against petitioners in the United States
District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleging a
violation of the ADEA. He claimed that age had been a determinative
factor in petitioners' decision to fire him. Petitioners contested
this claim, asserting instead that respondent had been fired for
doing business with competitors of Hazen Paper. The case was tried
before a jury, which rendered a verdict for respondent on his ADEA
claim and also found violations of the Employee Retirement Income
Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 895, § 510, 29 U. S. C. §
1140, and state law. On the ADEA count, the jury specifically found
that petitioners "willfully" violated the statute. Under § 7(b) of
the ADEA, 29 U. S. C. § 626(b), a "willful" violation gives rise to
liquidated damages. *Robert E. Williams, Douglas S. McDowell, and Mona C. Zeiberg filed a brief for the Equal
Employment Advisory Council et al. as amici curiae urging
reversal.

															Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for
the American Association of Retired Persons by Steven S. Zaleznick and Cathy VentrellMonsees; and for the
National Employment Lawyers Association by Paul H.
Tobias. 607 Petitioners moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The
District Court granted the motion with respect to a state-law claim
and the finding of "willfulness" but otherwise denied it. An appeal
ensued. 953 F.2d
1405 (CA1 1992). The United States Court of Appeals for the
First Circuit affirmed judgment for respondent on both the ADEA and
ERISA counts, and reversed judgment notwithstanding the verdict for
petitioners as to "willfulness."

															In affirming the judgments of liability, the Court of Appeals
relied heavily on the evidence that petitioners had fired
respondent in order to prevent his pension benefits from vesting.
That evidence, as construed most favorably to respondent by the
court, showed that the Hazen Paper pension plan had a 10-year
vesting period and that respondent would have reached the 10-year
mark had he worked "a few more weeks" after being fired. Id., at 1411. There was also testimony that petitioners had
offered to retain respondent as a consultant to Hazen Paper, in
which capacity he would not have been entitled to receive pension
benefits. Id., at 1412. The Court of Appeals found this
evidence of pension interference to be sufficient for ERISA
liability, id., at 1416, and also gave it considerable emphasis in
upholding ADEA liability. After summarizing all the testimony
tending to show age discrimination, the court stated: "Based on the foregoing evidence, the jury could reasonably have
found that Thomas Hazen decided to fire [respondent] before his
pension rights vested and used the confidentiality agreement [that
petitioners had asked respondent to sign] as a means to that end.
The jury could also have reasonably found that age was inextricably
intertwined with the decision to fire [respondent]. If it were not
for [respondent's] age, sixty-two, his pension rights would not
have been within a hairbreadth of vesting. [Respondent] was
fifty-two years old when he was hired; his pension rights vested in
ten years." Id., at 1412. 608 As to the issue of "willfulness" under § 7(b) of the ADEA, the
Court of Appeals adopted and applied the definition set out in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U. S. 111 (1985). In Thurston, we held that the airline's facially discriminatory
job-transfer policy was not a "willful" ADEA violation because the
airline neither "knew [nor] showed reckless disregard for the
matter of whether" the policy contravened the statute. Id., at 128 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court of Appeals
found sufficient evidence to satisfy the Thurston standard,
and ordered that respondent be awarded liquidated damages equal to
and in addition to the underlying damages of $419,454.38. 953 F.
2d, at 1415-1416.

															We granted certiorari to decide two questions. 505 U. S. 1203
(1992). First, does an employer's interference with the vesting of
pension benefits violate the ADEA? Second, does the Thurston standard for liquidated damages apply to the case where the
predicate ADEA violation is not a formal, facially discriminatory
policy, as in Thurston, but rather an informal decision by
the employer that was motivated by the employee's age?

															II A

															The Courts of Appeals repeatedly have faced the question whether
an employer violates the ADEA by acting on the basis of a factor,
such as an employee's pension status or seniority, that is
empirically correlated with age. Compare White v. Westinghouse Electric Co., 862 F.2d
56 , 62 (CA3 1988) (firing of older employee to prevent vesting
of pension benefits violates ADEA); Metz v. Transit Mix,
Inc., 828 F. 2d 1202 (CA71987) (firing of older employee to
save salary costs resulting from seniority violates ADEA), with Williams v. General Motors Corp., 656 F.2d
120 , 130, n. 17 (CA5 1981) ("[S]eniority and age discrimination
are unrelated .... We state without equivocation that the seniority
a given 609 plaintiff has accumulated entitles him to no better or worse
treatment in an age discrimination suit"), cert. denied, 455 U. S.
943 (1982); EEOC v. Clay Printing Co., 955 F.2d
936 , 942 (CA4 1992) (emphasizing distinction between employee's
age and years of service). We now clarify that there is no
disparate treatment under the ADEA when the factor motivating the
employer is some feature other than the employee's age.

															We long have distinguished between "disparate treatment" and
"disparate impact" theories of employment discrimination. "'Disparate treatment' ... is the most easily understood type of
discrimination. The employer simply treats some people less
favorably than others because of their race, color, religion [or
other protected characteristics.] Proof of discriminatory motive is
critical, although it can in some situations be inferred from the
mere fact of differences in treatment .... "[C]laims that stress 'disparate impact' [by contrast] involve
employment practices that are facially neutral in their treatment
of different groups but that in fact fall more harshly on one group
than another and cannot be justified by business necessity. Proof
of discriminatory motive ... is not required under a
disparate-impact theory." Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324 ,
335336, n. 15 (1977) (citation omitted) (construing Title VII of
Civil Rights Act of 1964). The disparate treatment theory is of course available under the
ADEA, as the language of that statute makes clear. "It shall be
unlawful for an employer ... to fail or refuse to hire or to
discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any
individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or
privileges of employment, because of such individual's age." 29 U. S. C. § 623(a)(1) (emphasis added). See Thurston,
supra, at 120-125 (affirming ADEA 610 liability under disparate treatment theory). By contrast, we
have never decided whether a disparate impact theory of liability
is available under the ADEA, see Markham v. Geller, 451 U. S. 945 (1981) (REHNQUIsT, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari), and
we need not do so here. Respondent claims only that he received
disparate treatment.

															In a disparate treatment case, liability depends on whether the
protected trait (under the ADEA, age) actually motivated the
employer's decision. See, e. g., United States Postal Service
Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U. S. 711 (1983); Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.
S. 248, 252-256 (1981); Furnco Constr. Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.
S. 567 , 576-578 (1978). The employer may have relied upon a
formal, facially discriminatory policy requiring adverse treatment
of employees with that trait. See, e. g., Thurston,
supra; Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart, 435 U. S. 702 ,
704-718 (1978). Or the employer may have been motivated by the
protected trait on an ad hoc, informal basis. See, e. g.,
Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U. S. 564 (1985); Teamsters, supra, at 334-343. Whatever the employer's
decisionmaking process, a disparate treatment claim cannot succeed
unless the employee's protected trait actually played a role in
that process and had a determinative influence on the outcome.

															Disparate treatment, thus defined, captures the essence of what
Congress sought to prohibit in the ADEA. It is the very essence of
age discrimination for an older employee to be fired because the
employer believes that productivity and competence decline with old
age. As we explained in EEOC v. Wyoming, 460 U. S. 226 (1983),
Congress' promulgation of the ADEA was prompted by its concern that
older workers were being deprived of employment on the basis of
inaccurate and stigmatizing stereotypes. "Although age discrimination rarely was based on the sort of
animus motivating some other forms of discrimination, it was based
in large part on stereotypes unsup- 611 ported by objective fact .... Moreover, the available empirical
evidence demonstrated that arbitrary age lines were in fact
generally unfounded and that, as an overall matter, the performance
of older workers was at least as good as that of younger workers." Id., at 231. Thus the ADEA commands that "employers are to evaluate [older]
employees ... on their merits and not their age." Western Air
Lines, Inc. v. Criswell, 472 U. S. 400 , 422
(1985). The employer cannot rely on age as a proxy for an
employee's remaining characteristics, such as productivity, but
must instead focus on those factors directly.

															When the employer's decision is wholly motivated by
factors other than age, the problem of inaccurate and stigmatizing
stereotypes disappears. This is true even if the motivating factor
is correlated with age, as pension status typically is. Pension
plans typically provide that an employee's accrued benefits will
become nonforfeitable, or "vested," once the employee completes a
certain number of years of service with the employer. See 1 J.
Mamorsky, Employee Benefits Law § 5.03 (1992). On average, an older
employee has had more years in the work force than a younger
employee, and thus may well have accumulated more years of service
with a particular employer. Yet an employee's age is analytically
distinct from his years of service. An employee who is younger than
40, and therefore outside the class of older workers as defined by
the ADEA, see 29 U. S. C. § 631(a), may have worked for a
particular employer his entire career, while an older worker may
have been newly hired. Because age and years of service are
analytically distinct, an employer can take account of one while
ignoring the other, and thus it is incorrect to say that a decision
based on years of service is necessarily "age based."

															The instant case is illustrative. Under the Hazen Paper pension
plan, as construed by the Court of Appeals, an employee's pension
benefits vest after the employee completes 10 years of service with
the company. Perhaps it is true 612 that older employees of Hazen Paper are more likely to be "close
to vesting" than younger employees. Yet a decision by the company
to fire an older employee solely because he has nine-plus years of
service and therefore is "close to vesting" would not constitute
discriminatory treatment on the basis of age. The prohibited
stereotype ("Older employees are likely to be -") would not have
figured in this decision, and the attendant stigma would not ensue.
The decision would not be the result of an inaccurate and
denigrating generalization about age, but would rather represent an accurate judgment about the employee-that he indeed is
"close to vesting."

															We do not mean to suggest that an employer lawfully could
fire an employee in order to prevent his pension benefits from
vesting. Such conduct is actionable under § 510 of ERISA, as the
Court of Appeals rightly found in affirming judgment for respondent
under that statute. See IngersollRand Co. v. McClendon, 498
U. S. 133 , 142-143 (1990). But it would not, without more,
violate the ADEA. That law requires the employer to ignore an
employee's age (absent a statutory exemption or defense); it does
not specify further characteristics that an employer must
also ignore. Although some language in our prior decisions might be
read to mean that an employer violates the ADEA whenever its reason
for firing an employee is improper in any respect, see McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792 , 802 (1973)
(creating proof framework applicable to ADEA) (employer must have
"legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason" for action against
employee), this reading is obviously incorrect. For example, it
cannot be true that an employer who fires an older black worker
because the worker is black thereby violates the ADEA. The
employee's race is an improper reason, but it is improper under
Title VII, not the ADEA.

															We do not preclude the possibility that an employer who targets
employees with a particular pension status on the assumption that
these employees are likely to be older 613 thereby engages in age discrimination. Pension status may be a
proxy for age, not in the sense that the ADEA makes the two factors
equivalent, cf. Metz, 828 F. 2d, at 1208 (using "proxy" to
mean statutory equivalence), but in the sense that the employer may
suppose a correlation between the two factors and act accordingly.
Nor do we rule out the possibility of dual liability under ERISA
and the ADEA where the decision to fire the employee was motivated
both by the employee's age and by his pension status. Finally, we
do not consider the special case where an employee is about to vest
in pension benefits as a result of his age, rather than
years of service, see 1 Mamorsky, supra, at § 5.02[2], and
the employer fires the employee in order to prevent vesting. That
case is not presented here. Our holding is simply that an employer
does not violate the ADEA just by interfering with an older
employee's pension benefits that would have vested by virtue of the
employee's years of service.

															Besides the evidence of pension interference, the Court of
Appeals cited some additional evidentiary support for ADEA
liability. Although there was no direct evidence of petitioners'
motivation, except for two isolated comments by the Hazens, the
Court of Appeals did note the following indirect evidence:
Respondent was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement, even
though no other employee had been required to do so, and his
replacement was a younger man who was given a less onerous
agreement. 953 F. 2d, at 1411. In the ordinary ADEA case, indirect
evidence of this kind may well suffice to support liability if the
plaintiff also shows that the employer's explanation for its
decision-here, that respondent had been disloyal to Hazen Paper by
doing business with its competitors-is" 'unworthy of credence.'"
Ai kens, 460 U. S., at 716 (quoting Burdine, 450 U.
S., at 256). But inferring age motivation from the implausibility
of the employer's explanation may be problematic in cases where
other unsavory motives, such as pension interference, were present.
This issue is now before us in the Title VII con- 614 text, see Hicks v. St. Mary's Honor Center, 970 F.2d
487 (CA8 1992), cert. granted, 506 U. S. 1042 (1993), and we
will not address it prematurely. We therefore remand the case for
the Court of Appeals to reconsider whether the jury had sufficient
evidence to find an ADEA violation.

															B

															Because we remand for further proceedings, we also address the
second question upon which certiorari was granted: the meaning of
"willful" in § 7(b) of the ADEA, which provides for liquidated
damages in the case of a "willful" violation.

															In Thurston, we thoroughly analyzed § 7(b) and concluded
that "a violation of the Act [would be] 'willful' if the employer
knew or showed reckless disregard for the matter of whether its
conduct was prohibited by the ADEA." 469 U. S., at 126 (internal
quotation marks and ellipsis omitted). We sifted through the
legislative history of § 7(b), which had derived from § 16(a) of
the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), 52 Stat. 1069, as
amended, 29 U. S. C. § 216(a), and determined that the accepted
judicial interpretation of § 16(a) at the time of the passage of
the ADEA supported the "knowledge or reckless disregard" standard.
See 469 U. S., at 126. We found that this standard was consistent
with the meaning of "willful" in other criminal and civil statutes.
See id., at 126-127. Finally, we observed that Congress aimed to
create a "two-tiered liability scheme," under which some, but not
all, ADEA violations would give rise to liquidated damages. We
therefore rejected a broader definition of "willful" providing for
liquidated damages whenever the employer knew that the ADEA was "in
the picture." See id., at 127-128.

															In McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe Co., 486 U. S. 128 (1988), an
FLSA case, we reaffirmed the Thurston standard. The question
in Richland Shoe was whether the limitations pro- 615 vision of the FLSA, creating a 3-year period for "willful"
violations, should be interpreted consistently with Thurston. We answered that question in the affirmative. "The word 'willful' is widely used in the law, and, although it
has not by any means been given a perfectly consistent
interpretation, it is generally understood to refer to conduct that
is not merely negligent. The standard of willfulness that was
adopted in Thurston that the employer either knew or showed
reckless disregard for the matter of whether its conduct was
prohibited by the statute-is surely a fair reading of the plain
language of the Act." 486 U. S., at 133. Once again we rejected the "in the picture standard" because it
would "virtually obliterat[e] any distinction between willful and
nonwillful violations." Id., at 132-133.

															Surprisingly, the Courts of Appeals continue to be confused
about the meaning of the term "willful" in § 7(b) of the ADEA. A
number of Circuits have declined to apply Thurston to what
might be called an informal disparate treatment case-where age has
entered into the employment decision on an ad hoc, informal basis
rather than through a formal policy. At least one Circuit refuses
to impose liquidated damages in such a case unless the employer's
conduct was "outrageous." See, e. g., Lockhart v. Westinghouse Credit Corp., 879 F.2d
43 , 57-58 (CA3 1989). Another requires that the underlying
evidence of liability be direct rather than circumstantial. See, e. g., Neufeld v. Searle Laboratories, 884 F.2d
335 , 340 (CA8 1989). Still others have insisted that age be the
"predominant," rather than simply a determinative, factor. See, e. g., Spulak v. K Mart Corp., 894
F.2d 1150 , 1159 (CAlO 1990); Schrand v. Federal
Pacific Elec. Co., 851 F.2d
152 , 158 (CA6 1988). The chief concern of these Circuits has
been that the application of Thurston would defeat the
two-tiered system of liability intended by Congress, because every
employer that engages in informal age 616 discrimination knows or recklessly disregards the illegality of
its conduct.

															We believe that this concern is misplaced. The ADEA does not
provide for liquidated damages "where consistent with the principle
of a two-tiered liability scheme." It provides for liquidated
damages where the violation was "willful." That definition must be
applied here unless we overrule Thurston, or unless there is
some inherent difference between this case and Thurston to
cause a shift in the meaning of the word "willful."

															As for the first possibility, petitioners have not persuaded us
that Thurston was wrongly decided, let alone that we should
depart from the rule of stare decisis. The two-tiered
liability principle was simply one interpretive tool among several
that we used in Thurston to decide what Congress meant by
the word "willful," and in any event we continue to believe that
the "knowledge or reckless disregard" standard will create two
tiers of liability across the range of ADEA cases. It is not true
that an employer who knowingly relies on age in reaching its
decision invariably commits a knowing or reckless violation of the
ADEA. The ADEA is not an unqualified prohibition on the use of age
in employment decisions, but affords the employer a "bona fide
occupational qualification" defense, see 29 U. S. C. § 623(f)(1),
and exempts certain subject matters and persons, see, e. g.,
§ 623(f)(2) (exemption for bona fide seniority systems and employee
benefit plans); § 631(c) (exemption for bona fide executives and
high policymakers). If an employer incorrectly but in good faith
and nonrecklessly believes that the statute permits a particular
age-based decision, then liquidated damages should not be imposed.
See Richland Shoe, supra, at 135, n. 13. Indeed, in Thurston itself we upheld liability but reversed an
award of liquidated damages because the employer "acted
[nonrecklessly] and in good faith in attempting to determine
whether [its] plan would violate the ADEA." 469 U. S., at 129. 617 Nor do we see how the instant case can be distinguished from Thurston, assuming that petitioners did indeed fire
respondent because of his age. The only distinction between Thurston and the case before us is the existence of formal
discrimination. Age entered into the employment decision there
through a formal and publicized policy, and not as an undisclosed
factor motivating the employer on an ad hoc basis, which is what
respondent alleges occurred here. But surely an employer's
reluctance to acknowledge its reliance on the forbidden factor
should not cut against imposing a penalty. It would be a
wholly circular and self-defeating interpretation of the ADEA to
hold that, in cases where an employer more likely knows its conduct
to be illegal, knowledge alone does not suffice for liquidated
damages. We therefore reaffirm that the Thurston definition
of "willful"that the employer either knew or showed reckless
disregard for the matter of whether its conduct was prohibited by
the statute-applies to all disparate treatment cases under the
ADEA. Once a "willful" violation has been shown, the employee need
not additionally demonstrate that the employer's conduct was
outrageous, or provide direct evidence of the employer's
motivation, or prove that age was the predominant, rather than a
determinative, factor in the employment decision.

															The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is
remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

															So ordered.

															JUSTICE KENNEDY, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE THOMAS
join, concurring.

															I agree with the Court that the Court of Appeals placed improper
reliance on respondent's evidence of pension interference and that
the standard for determining willfulness announced in Trans
World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U. S. 111 (1985),
applies to individual acts of age discrimination as 618 well as age discrimination manifested in formal, companywide
policy. I write to underscore that the only claim based upon the
Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U. S. C. § 621 et seq., asserted by respondent in this litigation is that
petitioners discriminated against him because of his age. He has
advanced no claim that petitioners' use of an employment practice
that has a disproportionate effect on older workers violates the
ADEA. See App. 29-30 (amended complaint); 5 Record 71-76 (jury
instructions). As a result, nothing in the Court's opinion should
be read as incorporating in the ADEA context the so-called
"disparate impact" theory of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, 42 U. S. C. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17. As the Court acknowledges, ante, at 610, we have not yet addressed the question whether
such a claim is cognizable under the ADEA, and there are
substantial arguments that it is improper to carry over disparate
impact analysis from Title VII to the ADEA. See Markham v. Geller, 451 U.
S. 945 (1981) (REHNQUIsT, J., dissenting from denial of
certiorari); Metz v. Transit Mix, Inc., 828 F.2d
1202 , 1216-1220 (CA7 1987) (Easterbrook, J., dissenting); Note,
Age Discrimination and the Disparate Impact Doctrine, 34 Stan. L.
Rev. 837 (1982). It is on the understanding that the Court does not
reach this issue that I join in its opinion.

Summary:
Here is a summary of the case verdict:

The Supreme Court ruled that an employer does not violate the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) by interfering with an older employee's pension benefits that would have vested based on their years of service. The Court found that liability under the ADEA depends on whether age was the motivating factor in the employer's decision and that a decision based on years of service is distinct from age. The Court also upheld the "knowledge or reckless disregard" standard for liquidated damages in cases of individual age discrimination. The case was remanded to the lower court to reconsider the evidence for ADEA liability.