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Employment — age discrimination

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//July 8, 2014//

Employment — age discrimination

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//July 8, 2014//

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U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit

Civil

Employment — age discrimination

Where the employee showed no nexus between her age and any adverse employment action, summary judgment was properly granted to the employer on her age discrimination claim.

“Hutt focuses her briefing on Solvay’s treatment of Hutt and Craig, so it deserves mention why this is not circumstantial evidence that can be used to make a case for age discrimination under the direct method. Simply, there are no facts about Solvay’s treatment of Hutt or Craig to suggest that the company’s employment actions had anything to do with their ages. Hutt wants us to extrapolate that, because Hutt and Craig were respectively 54 and 59 at the time of the employment actions — the two oldest sales representatives to be placed on warning status, and also the two sales representatives to be placed on the longest terms of warning status — Solvay must have acted with age-based discriminatory intent. But the circumstantial evidence in this case does not point directly to a discriminatory reason for the employer’s actions. No evidence is presented in support of the contention that the younger employees on warning status, or indeed other younger Solvay employees in general, are similarly? situated comparators, ‘directly comparable’ to Hutt ‘in all material respects,’ and with ‘other possible explanatory variables’ eliminated, whose differential treatment from Hutt would allow an inference of age-based discrimination. See Good v. Univ. of Chi. Med. Ctr., 673 F.3d 670, 675 (7th Cir. 2012); Coleman v. Donahoe, 667 F.3d 835, 841 (7th Cir. 2012) (‘[T]he proposed comparator must be similar enough to permit a reasonable juror to infer, in light of all the circumstances, that an impermissible animus motivated the employer’s decision.’). Instead, the theory that Hutt and Craig were singled out for worse treatment based on their age is only asserted with ‘reliance on speculation.’ Good, 673 F.3d at 676. ‘[O]ne might guess or speculate that perhaps [Hutt’s age] might have made a difference in the decision, but guesswork and speculation are not enough to avoid summary judgment.’ Id. at 675. For this reason, her claim fails under the direct method.”

Affirmed.

13-1481 Hutt v. Abbvie Products LLC

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Van Bokkelen, J., Tinder, J.

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