Age Bias: Court Sees Grounds For Nurse’s Case.

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Age Bias: Court Sees Grounds For Nurse’s Case.

Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession

Low evaluation scores may be seen as a pretext for discrimination when subjective criteria such as positive attitude, positive energy, ability to work as a team player or commitment to the position are used. In this case the terminated employee’s evaluations did not document a single specific instance of unacceptable behavior on the job. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT PENNSYLVANIA November 22, 2016

A registered nurse had worked as a staff nurse and case manager for the hospital for more than ten years before she applied for promotion to management. After getting the promotion, friction with other individuals in management resulted in the nurse being put on a ninety-day performance review status and then being terminated over unfavorable reviews.

The nurse, fifty-four years old at the time of her termination, sued for age discrimination. The US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania saw grounds for the terminated nurse’s age discrimination lawsuit to go forward. The Court was suspicious from the start at the fact this employee was singled out for ninety-day performance reviews. The performance reviews, the Court believed, were full of subjective judgments that failed to demonstrate that the nurse was not doing her job satisfactorily and did not provide a legitimate, nondiscriminatory justification for the nurse’s termination.

If an employee forty to seventy years of age is treated adversely despite doing his or her job satisfactorily, the employer has the burden of proof to prove an adverse employment decision was not discriminatory. McManamy v. Hospital, 2016 WL 6879556 (W.D. Penna., November 22, 2016).