A Texas-based company is paying $201,000 to settle an age discrimination lawsuit after one of its employees, a 64-year-old salesman, was fired in 2009.
The man was fired due to his age, despite the fact that he was the company's top producer and popular with customers, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC stated that workers have the right to be evaluated based on their abilities and performance regardless of age and that the company's executive vice president and general manager did not do so.
The EEOC found that the executive repeatedly expressed his preference for hiring younger workers and made comments to the employee which were discriminatory before firing him, Plan Sponsor reports. The executive also repeatedly made comments about the sales profession being one for young men, and the 64-year-old's job position was filled by a man in his 30s the next day.
Avoiding age discrimination
While some cases are more clear-cut, it can be difficult for employers to prove that they have not engaged in age discrimination when an older worker is fired. While the executive's comments served as clear evidence, there is often the potential to argue that an older worker was let go because of his or her age even without that type of support.
It can be difficult to avoid such accusations or prove them false, BLR notes, because of the standards which apply. Employers may need to demonstrate that their decisions was based on a "reasonable factor other than age" (RFOA), which may be challenging to define or demonstrate clearly. Employers, courts and the EEOC itself have all struggled to clarify what RFOAs are. In order to successfully carry through an RFOA defense, experts told BLR, employers must show that they are attempting to achieve a legitimate business purpose and that they are pursuing that goal in a way that reasonably achieves it, based on the information available to them.
The human resource system and decision-making process that leads the the termination decision is more likely to be recognized as using RFOAs if it meets certain guidelines set out by the EEOC. First, criteria used to evaluate employees should be based on their impact on the business. Second, employers need to define their criteria accurately and apply them fairly, training managers and supervisors to evaluate workers while avoiding discrimination.
Additionally, employers should limit the subjective component of employee evaluations and the effect of known age-based stereotypes and make an effort to determine and reduce the negative effects their policies might have. Finally, employers may be evaluated based on both the number of people their policies could harm and how severely they do so.
