Gregory v. Ashcroft

An article of the state of Missouri Constitution dictated that all judges other than municipal judges should retire at age 70. Because increasing age often involves deterioration of mental and physical abilities, this provision was enacted to ensure state judges were fully capable of performing their duties. Subject to this provision were two Missouri state judges: Ellis Gregory, Jr., a judge for the Twenty-First Judicial Circuit, and Anthony P. Nugent, Jr., a judge for the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District. Both had been appointed to their positions by respondent, Governor John D. Ashcroft of Missouri, and had been retained in office through infrequent retention elections. They ran unopposed and were subject only to a "yes or no" vote. Before dismissal, petitioners sued Ashcroft, the governor of Missouri, in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, challenging the mandatory retirement provision of the Missouri Constitution. They stated that it violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, "No State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The ADEA, enacted by Congress in 1967, protected senior workers from discrimination in hiring, firing, and in conditions of employment. This act was amended in 1974 also naming states as employers. The term "employees" was also redefined to exclude from the ADEA protection any person elected to public office, or any person chosen by such officer to be on his/her personal staff, or an appointee on the policymaking level, or an immediate adviser on legal questions.

The district court held that mandatory retirement did not violate the ADEA. Because the two judges were appointed by an elected official (the governor), and their judicial duties included making policy by establishing rules of practice on local and state level, judges were "appointees on a policymaking level." They were, therefore, excluded from the protection of the ADEA. The court also applied the "rational basis standard" of the Equal Protection analysis and found it was satisfied because Missouri had a justifiable rationale for distinguishing between judges and other state officials not subject to the provision. Other officials, unable to perform their duties because of age, could be removed from office considerably easier than judges who ran unopposed in retention elections and whose deterioration in abilities the voters could less easily perceive. The two judges' claims were rejected and the governor of Missouri dismissed them.

Petitioners appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, but this court affirmed the dismissal. The appellate court agreed with the district court's finding that judges were appointees on the policymaking level and consequently not protected by the ADEA. It also held that the state rationally distinguished between judges over and judges under 70. Following this decision, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari (a written order to a lower court to forward the proceedings of a case for review).