There suddenly are several class action lawsuits pending in federal court that could potentially bring an end to decades of epidemic and unaddressed age discrimination in hiring in the United States.
We may be at a key tipping point.
These cases include:
- In June 2012, Richard M. Villarreal filed a federal age discrimination lawsuit in federal court in Gainesville, GA, against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., after learning that Reynolds, working with national staffing agencies, used “resume review guidelines” to weed out the applications of older workers. Villarreal was 49 when he filed the first of a half-dozen applications to work as a territory manager for Reynolds from 2007 to 2010.
The resume review guidelines specified that “desired” candidates had “2-3 years out of college” and told recruiters to “stay away from” candidates with eight to 10 years of experience. Villarreal’s resume and the resumes of hundreds of other older job applicants were dumped into a digital trash can without consideration.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta last year split from other federal circuits and ruled that job applicants can file lawsuits under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) challenging employer policies and practices that discriminate against older job applicants. These are called disparate impact lawsuits. Reynolds appealed that 2-1 decision to the full court, which in February vacated the panel’s decision and agreed to rehear the case “en banc” (with the full court sitting in judgment). Oral arguments are scheduled for June 21. The case was originally fled by attorney John J. Almond of Rogers & Hardin, Atlanta.
- In April 2015, software engineer Robert Heath filed an age discrimination lawsuit against Google, Inc. in San Jose. Heath was interviewed but not hired for a position at Google in 2011 when he was 60-years-of-age. The lawsuit alleges Google has demonstrated a pattern and practice of violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act )ADEA) and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).
According to the lawsuit, the median age of Google’s 28,000 employees in 2013 was 29 while the median age for computer programmers in the United States is 42.8 and the median age for software developers is 40.6. The parties are wrangling about whether the case will proceed as a class action under FEHA. The case was originally filed by attorney Daniel L. Low of Kotchen & Low, Washington, DC.
- In April 2016, certified public accountant, Steve Rabin, 53, filed an age discrimination complaint in federal court in San Francisco against Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC), a global accounting and auditing firm with gross revenues exceeding $35 billion. Rabin was rejected in 2013 for a position at PwC , which allegedly relies almost exclusively upon campus recruiting to fill entry-level positions and does not post vacancies on its public web site. The only way to apply is through PwC’s “Campus track recruitment tool, which requires a college affiliation.” PwC also maintains a mandatory early retirement policy that requires partners to retire by age 60 which allegedly discourages the hiring of experienced older applicants.
The average age of PwC’s workforce in 2011 was 27, while the median age of accountants and auditors in the United States was 43.2 years old. The lawsuit alleges that PwC’s policies have a disparate impact on older applicants, which means . The lawsuit does not involve PwC’s hiring of executives. This case was filed by attorneys from the New York firm of Outten & Golden, the AARP Foundation Litigation, and the San Francisco firm, The Liu Law Firm, P.C.
The EEOC also has filed a couple of individual cases in recent months involving age discrimination in hiring.
In my groundbreaking book, Betrayed: The Legalization of Age Discrimination in the Workplace, I show that older workers for years have been disproportionately represented in the ranks of the long-term unemployed. Meanwhile, employers and employment agencies post job advertisements that obviously intend to exclude older workers, using code terms like “seeking digital natives” or “only recent graduates.” Until now, the obvious and rampant nature of age discrimination, especially in hiring, has gone virtually unchallenged.
