## Facts

- Missouri’s Constitution required all state judges (other than municipal judges) to retire at age 70.
- Ellis Gregory, Jr. and Anthony P. Nugent, Jr., Missouri judges appointed under a nonpartisan plan and later retained through retention elections, were subject to the mandatory retirement rule.
- The judges sued the Missouri Governor, alleging the retirement provision:
  - conflicted with the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), and
  - violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by treating judges differently from other state officials without mandatory retirement.
- The federal district court dismissed the complaint, concluding that appointed judges were excluded from ADEA coverage and that the age classification satisfied rational basis review.
- The Eighth Circuit affirmed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

## Issues

1. Whether appointed Missouri state judges are “employees” covered by the ADEA, or instead excluded as “appointee[s] on the policymaking level,” leaving Missouri’s mandatory retirement rule unpreempted.
2. Whether requiring judges to retire at age 70 violates the Equal Protection Clause.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed (7–2).
- The Court held that the ADEA did not apply because appointed state judges fall within the statute’s exclusion for “appointee[s] on the policymaking level.”
- The Court held the mandatory retirement rule did not violate equal protection because it was rationally related to legitimate state interests.
- Justice O’Connor authored the majority opinion; Justice Blackmun, joined by Justice Marshall, dissented.

## Legal Principles

- When a federal statute would interfere with a state’s authority to set qualifications for its high officials, the statute is read to have that effect only if Congress makes its intent unmistakably clear (a clear-statement rule tied to federal–state balance concerns).
- Where statutory text is ambiguous on whether it reaches core state governmental functions, the ambiguity is resolved against interpreting the statute to intrude on those functions absent a clear congressional statement.
- For equal protection, age classifications are not suspect, and there is no fundamental right to hold state judicial office; rational basis review applies.
- Under rational basis review, a state may use general age-based rules to address fitness and administrative manageability, and need not draw lines with precision.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld Missouri’s mandatory judicial retirement age, concluding that the ADEA does not clearly cover appointed state judges and that the age-based retirement rule is constitutionally valid under rational basis review.


Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452 (1991)