Kpix-Tv

Plaintiffs William Schechner and John Lobertini were television news reporters at KPIX-TV, one of the two San Francisco affiliates of CBS Broadcasting, Inc. They were laid off after CBS issued a directive requiring each of its affiliates to reduce its annual budget by ten percent. Schechner and Lobertini were sixty-six and forty-seven years old, respectively, when they lost their jobs. They brought suit alleging that KPIX discriminated against them on the basis of age and gender, in violation of California law. The district court granted KPIX’s motion for summary judgment, dismissing all of Plaintiffs’ claims. We affirm. We write to clarify that a plaintiff can make out a prima facie case of disparate-treatment age discrimination using statistical evidence, even where that evidence does not account for the defendant’s legitimate non-discriminatory reason for the discharge.

I. BACKGROUND

This case demonstrates that reduced advertising revenues, whether caused by competition from online news outlets or our nation’s economic downturn, have taken a significant toll on local television news stations. Schechner and Lobertini were performing their jobs well when KPIX laid them…