Don’t mess with HR: Company pays $460K to settle age bias lawsuit

An HR director received a six-figure settlement to settle her age discrimination claim. Here’s what happened:

An overseas company hired a new president to run a location in the state of Georgia. Things quickly turned problematic, the HR director said, when the company planned to implement changes that violated federal law.

And when the HR director tried to explain how anti-discrimination laws worked in the U.S., she was fired.

HR director explains age discrimination — to no avail

In 2019, Fischer Connectors, Inc., a Swiss-based national manufacturer of circular connectors used in medical devices, hired a new president for its location in the state of Georgia.

The new president and the company then made plans to “eliminate all older management and sales employees” and replace them with younger workers “under the guise of job eliminations,” an EEOC lawsuit later alleged.

The HR director, a 67-year-old, said she witnessed the company “repeatedly turning down qualified older employees in favor of less-qualified, younger employees and forcing out all older upper-management employees.” 

The HR director said she tried to explain the company’s legal obligations under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), but her message was not well received. Moreover, when she refused to “participate” in the company’s actions, she was “fired and replaced by two significantly younger individuals,” she said.

She filed an age discrimination complaint with the EEOC, and the agency sued on her behalf.

The company agreed to pay $460,000 to the former HR director to settle the dispute. It also agreed to:

• Train all of its U.S. employees and managers on the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).
• Distribute its ADEA policies to all employees.
• Post a notice about federal anti-discrimination laws and employee rights in the workplace.
• Submit to EEOC monitoring on how it handles future ADEA discrimination complaints. 

Info: Company to Pay $460K to Settle Age Discrimination Suit, 2/28/23.