Judicial Council of California and Chief Justice of California obtain summary judgment, on eve of trial, in long-running disparate impact discrimination lawsuit
Client(s) Judicial Council of California and Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero
Jones Day successfully represented the Judicial Council of California and Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero in a long-running disparate impact discrimination lawsuit filed by seven retired judges. The Judicial Council and the Chief Justice obtained summary judgment, the day before trial was set to begin, on the plaintiffs' sole remaining claim for disparate impact age discrimination. The plaintiffs originally filed suit in 2019, alleging, among other things, that certain changes made in 2018 to California's Temporary Assigned Judges Program, through which retired judges temporarily serve on assignment in trial courts, violated the California Fair Employment and Housing Act's prohibition on age discrimination. The plaintiffs claimed that a particular service day limitation implemented as part of a series of program reforms unlawfully subjected retired judges over the age of 70 to different conditions of employment than those under 70. The trial court dismissed all of the plaintiffs' claims in 2019. However, the Court of Appeal revived plaintiffs' disparate impact claim in 2021, but only as to prospective enforcement of the service day limitation. At summary judgment, following years of discovery, the court found that the plaintiffs failed to establish both causation and a statistically significant disparate impact.
Mahler v. Judicial Council of California., No. CGC-19-575842 (Super. Ct. San Francisco Cty., Cal.)
