A 72-year-old claims McDonald's fired him due to age after decades of service—now he's taking legal action
A 72-year-old McDonald’s veteran has filed suit, claiming age discrimination and wrongful termination after more than four decades on the job.
On October 17, 2025, Paul Rice took his former employer, McDonald’s USA, LLC, to federal court in Atlanta, alleging that the company let him go not for performance, but because of his age. Rice’s complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, outlines a situation familiar to many HR professionals: a long-serving employee, a new supervisor, and a series of management decisions that led to a disputed exit.
Rice spent approximately forty-four to forty-five years with McDonald’s, working in both franchise and corporate roles across five states: Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Texas, and Maryland. His final position was as a Field Operations Associate in Atlanta, where his duties included Customer First Visits, Running Great Restaurant Visits, Food Safety Visits, subject matter expert training sessions, and National Restaurant Building and Equipment Surveys. The complaint states that Rice received multiple trophies and awards for excellent performance and that his team received national recognition for their work on restaurant evaluations.
The complaint alleges that in 2022, Rice began reporting to a new supervisor, Jerome Parker, who is described as being substantially younger. Rice claims...
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