Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
Posts tagged as:
They’ve got the Illinois Constitution — or at least their power to read things into the ambiguities and interstices of that document — and they’re not afraid to use it. [ABA Journal] Scott Greenfield has some comments on the equal protection ruling and its policy implications.
{ 2 comments }
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Mary Bassi was 56 when she was allegedly subjected to age-based discrimination at the Cover Girls club where she waited tables. “According to the lawsuit, which was filed last week in federal court, she was frequently called ‘old’ by managers and endured comments about experiencing menopause and showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease.” Younger waitresses were also given shifts that Bassi had customarily worked. An EEOC lawyer says Bassi had been a successful waitress and is now working in that capacity for a competitive club; Cover Girls burned down in 2007 and has not been rebuilt. [Houston Chronicle via Tim Eavenson; Richard Connelly, Houston Press "Hair Balls"] We’ve covered earlier age-bias complaints by exotic dancers themselves (as opposed to support staff) in 2000 and last year (both in Ontario, Canada).
{ 1 comment }
“Lawyers said a ‘new breed’ of serial litigators was pouncing on ‘errors’ in job adverts, particularly referring to age, and taking advantages of weaknesses in the tribunal set-up to pursue discrimination claims.” One woman “was alleged to have made up to £100,000 from complaining that 22 companies had discriminated against her”, and even busier was a man who, according to one of his adversaries, was discovered to have filed around 50 complaints, many successful. A Law Society official dismissed talk of reform, saying, “Protecting employers who are not aware of the law is not a priority for the tribunals.” [Telegraph]
{ 8 comments }
Even they can’t stay on the right side of age-bias law: Bonita Brady, who works for the American Association of Retired Persons in its Lansing, Mich. office, is suing the advocacy group saying she was passed over for jobs because of her age despite good reviews. (”63-Year-Old Woman Sues the AARP for Age Discrimination”, AP/FoxNews.com, Aug. 20). More: Evil HR Lady, Jane Genova.
{ 3 comments }
Tom Leykis’s highly successful Westwood One radio show is geared to reach men 25-34, an advertiser-coveted demographic. When Marty Ingels, a 67-year-old talent agent and former sitcom actor (1962’s I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster) called in to the show, he was eventually put on the air, but Leykis launched into a series of japes poking fun at his age. Ingels proceeded to sue under California’s super-broad Unruh civil rights act and its equally super-broad s. 17200 unfair competition law, but an appeals court has now agreed with the broadcaster’s request to throw out the suit as violative of the state’s SLAPP statute, which is aimed at restricting some lawsuits that threaten free speech. (Kenneth Ofgang, “C.A. Rejects Age Bias Suit Over Exclusion From Radio Talk Show”, Metropolitan News-Enterprise, May 31; Ingels v. Westwood One, opinion in PDF format courtesy FindLaw; Silicon Valley Media Law Blog, May 26).
A 63-year-old West Texas woman has won an age-discrimination suit against a company run by an entrepreneur who is 72.
On Friday, a Dallas jury awarded Garlan Cunningham of Ranger more than $965,000 for lost wages, mental anguish and punitive damages after being derided as an “old nag,” a possible Alzheimer’s victim and an “old fart,” her attorneys said Monday.
Cunningham said Doris Richeson, a septuagenarian herself, organized the campaign of ridicule, which included an email referring to Cunningham as a lazy cowhand who’d been “in the saddle too long”. The company of which Richeson is founder and chairman operates 49 Dairy Queens in Texas; it denies Cunningham’s allegations and says it plans appeal. (Barry Shlachter, “Texas woman wins discrimination suit”, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Apr. 12).
Point of Law Volokh