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- A company has agreed to pay a former employee $105,000 in back page and damages.
- According to the lawsuit, she was fired after refusing to retire at 65.
- The company replaced her with a man in his 30s, despite telling her the role was being eliminated.
A former employee will receive $105,000 in back pay and damages after her company of nearly 20 years fired her when she refused to retire at 65, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said last week.
According to a discrimination lawsuit filed by the federal agency, J&M Industries, Inc., a manufacturing and distribution company in Louisiana, violated federal age discrimination laws by firing the employee.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, or ADEA, prohibits discrimination against individuals aged 40 or older based on age.
In a news release outlining the suit's outcome, the EEOC said that a company manager asked the employee, who was not named, repeatedly about her retirement plans as she approached her 65th birthday.
According to the EEOC's lawsuit, the managed directly asked her, "When are you going to retire," "Why don't you retire at 65," and "What is the reason you are not retiring?"
When she told the company she had no immediate plans to stop working, the company informed her that her role as a purchasing agent was being eliminated due to economic uncertainty, according to the federal agency.
However, the EEOC said the company hired a man in his 30s for the same role, which it had claimed to be eliminating, within a month.
According to the Miami Herald, the company denied firing the woman because of her age and said the 39-year-old replacement had "broader, more significant duties than she did."
The company said that comments made about her retirement plans were either "stray remarks" or were related to succession planning, the Miami Herald reported.
Under the three-year consent decree settling the suit, the company agreed to pay $105,000 in back pay and liquidated damages, provide training, revise policies, provide regular reports to the EEOC, and post a notice affirming compliance with the ADEA law.
The EEOC filed the suit in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
"This resolution serves the public interest," said Rudy Sustaita, regional attorney for the EEOC's Houston District Office, in a news release.
"It provides relief for the former employee and will help protect others from age discrimination," he added. "We are pleased that the EEOC and J&M Industries were able to reach this resolution."
J&M Industries did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment, which was sent outside operating hours.