Today’s 5-4 opinion in Kentucky Retirement System v. EEOC is noteworthy primarily in the respect that you’re unlikely to hear much mention of it.

By objective measures, the case—holding that Kentucky’s disability benefits plan does not discriminate against workers based on age—has almost all the makings for the usual liberal outrage about how a five-member majority under Chief Justice Roberts is hostile to employment-discrimination claims. According to the dissent:

– The majority “ignores established rules for interpreting and enforcing one of the most important statutes Congress has enacted to protect the Nation’s work force from age discrimination, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967.”

– The majority “undercuts [the] basic framework” under which “[d]isparate treatment on the basis of age is prohibited unless some exemption or defense provided in the Act applies.”

– “Kentucky’s facially discriminatory disability benefits plan … rests on a stereotypical assumption that itself violates the Act.”

– The majority is creating “unevenness in administration, unpredictability in litigation, and uncertainty as to employee rights once thought settled.”

– The majority “ignor[es] the statute and our past opinions” and reads into the Act a requirement that “even when it is evident that a benefits plan discriminates on its face on the basis of age, an ADEA plaintiff still must provide additional evidence that the employer acted with an ‘underlying motive’ to treat older workers less favorably than younger workers.”

And so on.

This is the very sort of ruling that would be the subject of New York Times editorials labeled “Our Cruel Court”, that would be included as sleeper surprises in wrap-up summaries of the Court’s term, and that would lead to Capitol Hill press conferences in which angry Democrats would announce their intent to introduce new legislation.

Except …. Except that Justice Breyer wrote the majority opinion and that Justices Stevens and Souter (along with the Chief Justice and Justice Thomas joined it), and that Justice Kennedy wrote the dissent and that Justices Scalia and Alito (along with Justice Ginsburg) joined it. In short, the case is missing the critical ingredients for bashing the Roberts Court. And, as a result, I’’ll dare to predict, you’re likely to hear little or nothing about this case beyond the standard day-after articles on the Court’s rulings today.

(For what it’s worth, I have not studied the opinions sufficiently carefully to form a judgment as to who is right.)