By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

The employee started working for the sheriff’s office after retiring from a decades-long career with the Chicago Police Department.

Despite evidence of ageist comments by his supervisor, and her involvement in an investigation that led to his termination, a Cook County Sheriff’s Office employee who was fired at the age of 69 failed to convince the Seventh Circuit to revive his various age discrimination claims. Affirming summary judgment against his Fourteenth Amendment claim, the appeals court found the claims failed because the employee was unable to show that a qualifying comparator was treated differently from him or that his supervisor’s discriminatory animus could be imputed to the ultimate decisionmaker. His failure to identify a similarly situated comparator or to show that his termination was motivated by age also doomed his ADEA and state-law claims, the appeals court concluded (Gaines v. Dart, No. 24-2157 (7th Cir. Oct. 22, 2025)).

After retiring from a decades-long career with the Chicago Police Department, the employee joined the Cook County Sheriff’s Office where he served as assistant chief in a unit responsible for monitoring individuals on pretrial release. He was responsible for sending daily reports of his activities to his supervisors, radioing out his location on a regular basis, and being available to his subordinates in the field.

Ageist comments. According to the employee, his supervisor made various ageist comments to...

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