Overturning a jury's verdict of more than $240,000 in an age discrimination suit, a federal magistrate judge has ruled that a plaintiff who was fired at the age of 50 failed to prove an essential element of his case because the four workers who assumed his duties had an average age of less than seven years younger than he was. In his 60-page opinion in Steward v. Sears Roebuck & Co., U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas J. Rueter concluded that plaintiff Gunnar Steward failed to make out a prima facie case of age discrimination.
The decision is a stunning setback for Steward and his lawyers, Carmen R. Matos of Doylestown, Pa., and George P. Wood of Stewart & Wood in Norristown, Pa., and overturns a jury's award of nearly $93,000 in back pay and $148,000 in front pay. Matos and Wood argued that after Steward was fired, his duties were taken over by two men in their 30s and one in his mid-40s, with an average age of less than 38, or more than 12 years younger than Steward.
But Rueter sided with Sears and its lawyers -- Sidney R. Steinberg and Robert J. Toy of Post & Schell -- who said the evidence showed that a 60-year-old woman also took over some of his duties. As a result, Rueter concluded that the average age of the workers who assumed Steward's duties was just 6.75 years -- a difference the judge found to be not enough for a prima facie case.
Rueter's ruling could force the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to revisit a vexing question that often arises in age discrimination suits -- just how much younger must the more favorably treated employee be in order to be deemed "sufficiently younger" than the plaintiff? The answer for courts in the 3rd Circuit, Rueter found, is that a difference of less than seven years is not enough.