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Age Bias Suit Nets Attorneys Fee Award
Posted by: Melville Johnson, P.C.
May 16, 2008
Topic: Employment Discrimination
The Attorneys at Melville Johnson, P.C. can provide this type of employment law representation for you:
In September, 2005, a jury awarded a Plaintiff, Mr. Gunnar Steward, $92,985 in back pay and $148,000 in front pay for a claim of age discrimination against Sears Roebuck & Company. The verdict was overturned in June, 2006, by the District Court Judge, who determined that Mr. Steward had failed to show that he was replaced by "sufficiently younger" employees. The judge's ruling was later reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, who reinstated the jury's verdict. The district court concluded that the Plaintiff, who was 50 years old at the time he was fired, was replaced by four workers, whose average age was just 6.75 years younger. The Judge reasoned that this age difference was insufficient to establish a prima facie case of discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, since the majority of the circuits require a showing of an age difference of more than ten years to satisfy the fourth prong of the prima facie case. The United States Court of Appeals held that the district court judge had erred by imposing too strict a requirement for proving that a sufficient age difference existed, and thus ruled in favor of the Mr. Steward in his federal civil appeal. The Court of Appeals stated, in Steward v. Sears Roebuck & Co ., that it "declined to adopt a brightline rule that a 6.75 year average age difference between a plaintiff and those who assume his job duties, as a matter of law, insufficient to give rise to an inference of age discrimination."
The Third Circuit has also awarded $136,000 in attorneys fees for the federal civil appeal and nearly $425,000 in attorneys fees for district court suit. Despite objection's by Sear's lawyers, the court in making the award for the attorneys fees found that given the particularly complex nature of the age discrimination law suit and that the employment law attorneys had properly documented their time, the court determined that the award to the law firm of its fees was proper.
This article is largely based on a Legal Intelligencer article written by Shannon P. Duffy on May 2, 2008.
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