Trial News

A split Sixth Circuit panel has reinstated a woman’s lawsuit alleging that her firing violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The court found that genuine issues of material fact remained and that the plaintiff had alleged sufficient evidence to find that the defendant’s stated reason for her termination was pretextual. (Hannon v. Louisiana-Pac. Corp., 2019 WL 4667565 (6th Cir. Sept. 24, 2019).)

Pamela Hannon worked in various roles at Louisiana-Pacific Corp. since 1987. In February 2015, Juliet Depina (Hannon’s supervisor since September 2014) fired Hannon, who was 58. Depina told Hannon her position was being eliminated as part of a business reorganization. The three sales administrators who remained or were hired later were all 25 or younger.

Hannon filed a charge of discrimination based on age and sex with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and received a right to sue letter in March 2017. In June 2017, she sued Louisiana-Pacific in Tennessee federal district court, alleging age discrimination in violation of the ADEA and sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The district court granted the defendant summary judgment on both counts, and the plaintiff appealed the ADEA claim.

The Sixth Circuit reviewed its “guiding principle” in age discrimination cases: The “‘evidence must be sufficiently probative to allow a factfinder to believe that the employer intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff because of age.’” (Barnes v. GenCorp, 896 F.2d 1457 (6th Cir. 1990).) Here, the plaintiff alleged that during the time Depina was her supervisor, Depina made several disparaging comments about the plaintiff’s age—including calling Hannon “grandma” and “little old lady” in front of other colleagues. The plaintiff also alleged that Depina made a teasing reference to post-menopausal issues, which made the plaintiff very uncomfortable.

Although Depina challenged the plaintiff’s account, the court “emphasize[d] that it is not [its] role to decide such factual disputes; rather, a jury should decide such disputes—provided that they concern material facts.” The court found that the statements Depina allegedly made are material and “relatively strong evidence of age discrimination” because they came from the plaintiff’s supervisor, who ultimately terminated her; were more than “vague, ambiguous, or isolated remarks;” and occurred close in time to the plaintiff’s termination.

The Sixth Circuit applied the McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green (411 U.S. 792 (1973)) burden-shifting framework, which requires plaintiffs alleging discrimination to plead a prima facie case. The court found that Hannon easily pleaded three of the four elements of an age discrimination claim: She was older than 40, and so within the class protected by the ADEA; she had suffered an adverse employment action; and neither party disputed that she was qualified for her former position.

Plaintiffs in age discrimination cases also must plead a fourth element, showing that they were replaced by younger workers. In the Sixth Circuit, this typically requires proving that a younger employee performed “all of a plaintiff’s former duties and only the plaintiff’s former duties.” In this case, however, due to the company reorganization, Hannon could not identify a direct replacement, which required her to provide “‘additional direct, circumstantial, or statistical evidence tending to indicate that the employer singled out the plaintiff for discharge for impermissible reasons.’” The court found that the plaintiff’s allegations regarding Depina’s ageist comments were sufficient additional evidence and, thus, Hannon had pleaded a prima facie case of age discrimination.

Under McDonnell Douglas, the defendant then was required to provide a legitimate reason for terminating the plaintiff, and it argued that her position had been eliminated as part of the company’s reorganization. The Sixth Circuit found, however, that the plaintiff had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant’s stated reason was pretextual. Although the defendant claimed that it had fired Hannon and reorganized the sales teams to eliminate specialized positions, few of the plaintiff’s former duties were performed by “generalist” sales administrators. In fact, an employee who had a “specialized managerial role” like the one the plaintiff held before her termination performed the bulk of Hannon’s duties.

The court held that a reasonable juror could conclude that the plaintiff would have kept her job had she been younger and that the district court erred when it granted summary judgment. “[T]he existence of such factual disputes makes it evident that a jury—not a judge—should decide what actually happened . . . and we reverse and remand to allow the jury to play its proper role in this case,” the Sixth Circuit wrote.

“As the Sixth Circuit says up front, there are key disputed facts in this case. Whether the defendant’s reorganization claim is pretextual, for example, is up for dispute,” said Kingsport, Tenn., attorney Kyle Vaughan, who handles employment discrimination cases. “And as the court said, when the evidence is sufficient for a jury to find for the plaintiff, it’s not for a judge to decide whether to believe the defendant and its stated reasons for the termination—that’s the jury’s decision to make.”

Nashville attorney Doug Johnston, who represents the plaintiff, echoed the importance of allowing jurors to review the evidence. “We are pleased with the ruling and grateful that now Ms. Hannon will be given the opportunity to explain her case to a jury.”