>>>> if you fail to find a candidate then you will easily be able to demonstrate that the candidate suing you for violating the law was not qualified and therefore has no reason to sue.
>>> Umm, no? There are plenty of times when I've had roles posted that we interviewed candidates who met the written requirements (e.g., degrees, years of experience, etc) but did not pass our interview loops. It's very hard to prove a negative.
>> if they passed the written requirements you should have interviewed them.
That is the point of my anecdote; we did interview them. And yet, we did not hire them, for a variety of reasons. For example, they may not have passed the interview. Or a reference check may have raised concerns. Or we may have hired another candidate whom we also interviewed and who did better.
Your implication, that they should have an easy and presumptively correct right to sue (and win) unless we can "demonstrate ... that the candidate was not qualified," is extremely expensive. It can easily cost 10's or 100's of thousands of dollars to defend a lawsuit.