The U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut recently denied summary judgment in a shoe salesman's age and gender discrimination lawsuit against his former employer. The salesman, Richard Tremalio, alleged that his former employer, shoe wholesaler Demand Shoes, LLC, had terminated his employment in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA") and the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act ("CFEPA"). Tremalio alleged that his manager had told him that the company's Chief Operating Officer wanted to hire a younger, female sales force and that he was replaced by a younger, female sales representative.
Demand Shoes moved for summary judgment, arguing that Tremalio
could not prove discrimination because: (1) Tremalio was not
qualified for the sales representative position in light of his
failure to meet the company's sales and behavior expectations;
(2) the company had no knowledge of the age of the salesperson who
replaced Tremalio; (3) Tremalio was not covered by the ADEA or
CFEPA because he was an independent contractor, not an employee;
and (4) even if Tremalio could be considered an employee, the
company had too few employees to qualify as an "employer"
under the ADEA or CFEPA.
In denying Demand Shoes' motion for summary judgment, the court
found that Tremalio had established prima facie cases of
age and gender discrimination and that a reasonable jury could find
that Demand Shoes' explanation for terminating Tremalio was
pretextual. The court relied on the U.S. Supreme Court's 2009
decision in Gross v. FBL Financial Services in finding
that Tremalio met the heightened standard of showing that his age
was a "but for" cause of his discharge, not just a
motivating factor. Specifically, the court found that Tremalio
raised an inference of age bias by pointing to the Chief Operating
Officer's preference for a younger sales force. However, the
Court declined to apply the stricter federal standard to
Tremalio's state-law age bias claim because no Connecticut
appellate court has ruled on whether to apply that standard.
The court also rejected Demand Shoes' remaining arguments.
Specifically, the court held that Tremalio had met the minimal
burden of showing that he was qualified for his job due to his
extensive experience in the shoe industry and that, even if Demand
Shoes did not know the specific age of Tremalio's replacement,
it must have been aware of a significant difference in their ages.
In addition, the court rejected Demand Shoes' argument that
Tremalio was an independent contractor, finding that the company
closely supervised Tremalio's work and did not produce an
independent contractor agreement for Tremalio, while it did produce
such agreements for other shoe salesmen. Lastly, the court rejected
Demand Shoes' argument that it did not meet the statutory
definition of an employer and found that a genuine issue of
material fact exists as to whether Demand Shoes could be grouped
with its parent company under the single employer doctrine in order
to satisfy the statutes' minimum numbers of employees.
Connecticut employers should take note that until the Connecticut
appellate courts rule on the issue of whether the heightened
"but for" standard applies to discrimination claims under
CFEPA, Connecticut employees asserting state-law age discrimination
claims apparently need only show that their age was a
"motivating factor" in any adverse employment action
taken against them.
Originally published on the Employer's Law Blog
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