Employment — age discrimination

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U.S. Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Employment — age discrimination

Although an employee was not hired after a restructuring, she failed to show age discrimination.

“Ripberger points to no other evidence in the record that Schoenradt or any other decisionmaker  arbored any discriminatory animus based on age. Indeed, the notion that Schoenradt desired to eliminate Ripberger because of her age is unlikely given that he had hired Ripberger to return to work at Pendleton just two years before when she was 57 years old.

See Rand v. CF Indus., Inc., 42 F.3d 1139, 1147 (7th Cir. 1994) (‘It seems rather suspect to claim that the company that hired him at age 47 “had suddenly developed an aversion to older people” two years later.’) (quoting Lowe v. J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc., 963 F.2d 173, 174-75 (8th Cir. 1992)). Any inference of age discrimination is further undercut by the fact that of the six employees Corizon hired at Pendleton, three were relatively close to Ripberger’s age: Anna Sasin was 51, Diane Diggins was 57, and Avery Thomas was over 60. Cf. O’Connor v. Consol. Coin Caterers Corp., 517 U.S. 308, 312-13 (1996) (no inference of age discrimination can be drawn from the replacement of one worker with another worker insignificantly younger). Simply put, Ripberger has presented no evidence that her age motivated Corizon’s decision not to hire her.”

Affirmed.

13-2070 Ripberger v. Corizon, Inc.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Pratt, J., Rovner, J.

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