He requested a standing desk in January — by mid-March, he was out
A long-tenured UPS employee claims he was pushed out weeks before his department was sold, alleging age, disability, race, and national origin discrimination.
Kin Ho Michael Pan spent more than two decades building his career at United Parcel Service. In March 2025, it came to an abrupt end — less than two months after he requested a standing desk for a spinal condition, and just weeks before UPS completed the sale of his department to NTT Data.
Now, he is suing the company in federal court, alleging that UPS used a data security policy as a convenient excuse to remove the oldest worker on his team ahead of a corporate transaction.
The lawsuit, filed February 5 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, paints a troubling picture for employers navigating workforce decisions during mergers and acquisitions. Pan, a 47-year-old IT professional of Chinese descent, alleges UPS wanted to present "a younger, less expensive, and ostensibly lower-risk workforce" to the buyer. He was the oldest member of his immediate team by eight years, and roughly 70 percent of workers in the Systems Engineering department were under 40.
The sequence of events leading to his termination deserves attention from HR leaders.
In January 2025, Pan requested a standing desk to manage chronic pain from a cervical and lumbar spine condition. UPS approved the accommodation. But according to the lawsuit, his manager...
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