## Facts

- Harvey N. Levin was hired in 2000 as an Assistant Attorney General in the Illinois Attorney General’s Office and promoted to Senior Assistant Attorney General in 2002.
- Levin received performance evaluations indicating he met or exceeded expectations, but the Office asserted he was terminated in 2006 for low productivity, excessive socializing, inferior litigation skills, and poor judgment.
- Levin was over 60 at termination and was replaced by a female attorney in her 30s.
- Levin sued asserting age discrimination under the ADEA, gender discrimination under Title VII, and equal protection claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against individual officials.
- The interlocutory appeal concerned only the § 1983 equal protection claim alleging intentional age discrimination by the individual defendants.

## Issues

1. Whether the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on Levin’s § 1983 age-based equal protection claim because the right was not clearly established at the time of the termination.
2. Whether the ADEA provides the exclusive federal remedy for age discrimination in employment, thereby precluding an age-based equal protection claim under § 1983 against individual state officials.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of qualified immunity.
- The court held that intentional age discrimination by state actors in public employment, lacking a rational basis, violates the Equal Protection Clause and that this constitutional rule was clearly established by 2006.
- The court held the ADEA does not preclude a § 1983 action alleging an age-based equal protection violation.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- Age classifications are reviewed under rational-basis scrutiny; state action that intentionally discriminates by age must be rationally related to a legitimate state interest.
- Qualified immunity turns on whether the alleged conduct violated a constitutional right that was clearly established at the time, not on uncertainty about whether a separate statutory scheme is the exclusive remedy.
- A federal statutory remedial scheme precludes § 1983 enforcement of related rights only when Congress clearly intended displacement; absent clear congressional intent, § 1983 remains available to vindicate distinct constitutional rights.
- The ADEA’s remedies do not displace § 1983 claims premised on the Equal Protection Clause for age discrimination in public employment (within the Seventh Circuit).

## Conclusion

The court held that Levin could pursue an age-based equal protection claim under § 1983 against individual state officials and that qualified immunity was unavailable because the constitutional prohibition on irrational intentional age discrimination in public employment was clearly established when Levin was terminated.


Levin v. Madigan, 692 F.3d 607 (7th Cir. 2012)