Hello,

I've been working for my current employer now for 6.5 years, and started about 3 years before I turned 40. My supervisor is about 8 years younger than I am. I noticed immediately that she treated the older workers differently, older than her that is. There were about 6 people at the time older than her, two under 40 and the rest over 40. She has forced out, fired or railroaded all of these older workers with the exception of me and I'm the last one left. They've turned up the harassment etc to get me to leave and started making up performance issues, so I filed an EEOC claim. Right after filing the EEOC claim, they immediately wrote me up and took away my tuition benefit.

The company I work for says it's clear that I have not been subject to Age Discrimination because the discrimination started before I was 40, and therefore absolute proof that I have not been subject to age discrimination.

Do they have a valid argument? My lawyer feels that you can be discriminated against at any age, it just so happens to become actionable at age of 40.

Any input?

Under both Federal and Colorado law, if you are not over 40, it's not illegal age discrimination.

The key word here is illegal. You discriminate when you pick the green shirt over the blue one. You discriminate when you order steak instead of chicken. Every one of us discriminates every day. The large majority of discrimination is perfectly legal.

Hello,
The company I work for says it's clear that I have not been subject to Age Discrimination because the discrimination started before I was 40, and therefore absolute proof that I have not been subject to age discrimination.

Do they have a valid argument? My lawyer feels that you can be discriminated against at any age, it just so happens to become actionable at age of 40.

If your supervisor fires employees based on age, she can fire those younger than 40 without penalty. However, if she fires an employee 40 or older because of age, she violates that federal age discrimination act.

Federal law prohibits an employer from taking adverse action against an employee who files an EEOC charge. If you believe that your tuition benefit was eliminated because you filed the EEOC charge, you need to notify EEOC and amend your charge to include that allegation.