Employment lawyers and human resources professionals regularly preach that managers must document employee performance issues as a best practice so that if/when that manager wants to terminate the employee, the company has the “receipts” to justify the decision. Suppose that the employee later sues for age discrimination. He may be…
Also, it is a bad idea to give that same employee a “retire-or-be-fired” ultimatum shortly after they return from bypass heart surgery. Am I making this stuff up? When have you known me to do that? No, these allegations come from a recent U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) press…
This sounds like something that might interest the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Oh, wait. Would you look at this EEOC press release? It seems her employer may have engaged in age and disability discrimination. Let’s see why the EEOC believes this: (I mean, other than “duh!”) According to the lawsuit, the…
“When are you going to retire?” “Why don’t you retire at 65?” “What is the reason you are not retiring?” A company manager at a manufacturing and distribution company allegedly asked these questions of a direct report as she approached her 65th birthday, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity…
Last night, I read a NJ Appellate Division opinion about a plaintiff in his fifties who claimed his age motivated the defendant to end his employment. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. There were many reasons why the appellate court affirmed the trial court’s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of…
Trust me. The title of this post will make sense in about a minute or two. Last year, a small sports bar and restaurant sought summary judgment to dismiss the age discrimination claims one of its former employees had asserted against the company. The company’s position was that it ended…
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. One of your employees has been with the company for several years. Over that span, they reported to the same manager, who consistently provided positive feedback and good performance reviews. All is well. Then, the manager leaves. And there’s a new sheriff…
Some jobs stink. But that doesn’t make the office a “hostile work environment.” For example, last night, I read about a manager whose employer transferred her to a unit facing a backlog of 12,000 cases. Following the transfer, the manager claimed she endured “constant negative treatment,” was the only one…
On Monday, three House Republicans and three House Democrats reintroduced the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act (POWADA), billed as a bipartisan proposal to strengthen anti-discrimination protections for older workers. How does POWADA accomplish this? The Age Discrimination In Employment Act makes it unlawful for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire…
Earlier this month, an employer learned the hard way that it could not rely on a contract provision to greenlight discrimination. For several years, a school district limited the annual earnings increases of teachers over age 45 to avoid a pension-contribution surcharge. Why? Because its collective bargaining agreement with the…