The Massachusetts Appeals Court has ruled in a split decision that a terminated employee could bring a “cat’s paw” discrimination claim based on evidence that a corporate reduction in force was tainted by age bias at upper levels, even if the manager implementing the RIF used nondiscriminatory criteria to identify affected workers.
“Cat’s paw” liability refers to a situation in which an employee or supervisor, motivated by discriminatory intent, influences an otherwise neutral decisionmaker to take an adverse action against an employee.
In the case before the court, defendant Schneider Electric USA laid off 54-year-old plaintiff Mark Adams in the last of three RIFs conducted in the company’s Boston, Massachusetts office between April 2016 and January 2017.
Though manager Kenneth Colby allegedly used neutral criteria focusing on his team’s needs in deciding who to lay off, 22 of the 24 workers fired in the three waves of cuts were over age 50, with one of the others being older than 40.
Email exchanges following the RIFs suggested that corporate higher-ups had viewed the “aging” Boston workforce as a liability and that the layoffs were meant to make room for “younger talent.”
Additionally, Colby — possibly aware of the company’s desire to get younger talent — allegedly discouraged another department leader from retaining Adams in a separate capacity.
The company, seeking summary judgment on Adams’ state age discrimination claim, categorized any ageist comments in the emails...
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