Dive Brief:
- An age discrimination lawsuit against General Mills is moving ahead after a federal judge rejected the company’s bid to have the case dismissed and force individual arbitration, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
- Filed in Minneapolis in early 2015, the litigation resulted from a 2012 corporate restructuring that involved approximately 850 mostly white-collar workers getting pink slips.
- The Star Tribune reported that 33 plaintiffs, all aged 40 and above, claim that they were improperly terminated in violation of the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act. General Mills countered by saying plaintiffs signed severance agreements, waving legal claims under the age discrimination act. Also, the agreements called for any disputes to be settled through individual arbitration, the Star Tribune reports.
Dive Insight:
The case is likely to come down to the whether or not those release agreements were signed “knowingly and willingly,” because if not, they are unenforceable. Also, whether a waiver release is signed ‘’knowingly and willingly” needs to be ajudicated according to a different, but related, federal law, the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, according to U.S. District Court Judge John Tunheim.
General Mills feels otherwise and said it will appeal Tunheim's ruling. If anything, this case shows that employers can't always count on the courts to see things their way when there is the possibility of age discrimination, or any type of discrimination. If there had been no issue of age, then this case may not have progressed.