Age Discrimination Litigation

by L. Steven Platt and Cathy Ventrell-Monsees

Winning Forms and Strategies for Age Cases

Age discrimination claims can yield big returns.  Settlements and jury awards are much higher than those for race, sex, and disability claims.  But the lack of direct evidence can make it difficult to survive summary judgment and win fair compensation.

Thankfully, respected litigators L. Steven Platt and Cathy Ventrell-Monsees know what it takes to win age cases.  They have tried over 100 age cases and submitted more than 50 amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court and circuit courts.  Within Age Discrimination Litigation, they reveal proven strategies, procedures, law, and forms to help you:

• Select winning cases

• Manage the charge-filing process

• Represent multiple plaintiffs

• Beat statutes of limitation

• Draft effective motions

• Focus your discovery

• Resist attempts to limit evidence

• Draft jury instructions

• Overcome defenses

• Protect attorney’s fees

Innovative Techniques

Age Discrimination Litigation offers dozens of powerful strategies, all annotated and many available nowhere else:

• How to avoid losing on summary judgment on pretext issues: changing reasons, discriminatory comments, ageist culture, comparable qualifications, statistical evidence, and more.

• Does FICA need to be withheld from age discrimination settlements and awards? May settlement agreements be structured to further reduce tax liability? Read Tax Aspects of Settlements, §12:110, and its cited cases and decide for yourself.

• Plaintiffs: file motions in limine for affirmative use. When to use them, benefits of use, and factors weighed in their grant or denial, all with supporting authority.

• How to use disparate impact statistics to prove pretext in disparate treatment cases, even when the sample size is small.

• The enforceability of confidentiality agreements under OWBPA, with 4 model settlement agreements.

• Post-Kimel exceptions where state employers can still be sued under federal law: voluntary state consent, federal spending power, 14th Amendment, and suits against municipal governments or individual state officials.

Proven Forms

This sophisticated plaintiff's practice guide comes with a companion CD-ROM containing over 100 forms in Word format. The discovery, settlement, and trial forms immediately raise the level of your advocacy. 

Discovery

• Seven sets of Plaintiff’s Interrrogatories: termination, failure to hire, failure to promote, demotion/termination, defendant’s experts, state human rights commission for failure to promote and termination.

• Six Requests for Production of Documents: termination, retaliation, failure to hire, state human rights commission long and short forms.

• Plus Requests for Admissions, Deposition Checklists, Expert Witness Discovery Checklists, and much more.

Motions

• Plaintiff’s Rule 56(f) Motion for a Continuance to Conduct Discovery, with annotated drafting tips.

• Detailed and heavily-annotated Memorandum in Support of Plaintiff’s Motion for Attorney’s Fees, with supporting affidavits from lead counsel, supporting counsel, and plaintiff.

Settlement and Trial

• Retainer Agreement with provisions covering: installment payments, fees if reinstatement, cost reimbursements, statutes of limitations, right to withdraw, split representation, and tax consequences.

• Over 50 annotated Jury Instructions, including several each for prima facie case, pretext, proof, retaliation, and damages.

Focused on Issues:

Age Discrimination Litigation contains well-supported discussions of frequently-recurring legal issues, citing over 1,500 cases. Authoritative analysis is provided for the law of: constructive discharge, forced retirement, demotions, failure to promote, forced transfers, hostile work environment, what constitutes “willfulness,” failure to apply, differences in pay, severance offset with retirement benefits, retaliation, reasonable job search efforts, after-acquired evidence. and circuit-by-circuit summaries of the decisions on:

• What constitutes pretext

• Consideration of pretext at summary judgment

• The effect of failing to apply for a position

• Hiring qualifications plaintiff must show

• Plaintiff’s burden of proof in RIF cases

• How the courts define “direct evidence”

• When reinstatement is the preferred remedy

• When front pay is an appropriate remedy

• Whether a judge or jury is to decide front pay

• When punitive damages are allowed

The most  recent update of Age Discrimination Litigation includes an in-depth and detailed legal analysis of the Supreme Court's decision in Smith v. City of Jackson, 544 U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 1536 (2005). Author Cathy Ventrell-Monsees wrote the NELA amicus brief in the case and she shares with you her knowledge of the law, as well as some practical, strategic advice for making this decision work to your advantage.

This sophisticated plaintiff's practice guide comes with a companion CD-ROM containing searchable, complete text of the book, as well as over 100 forms in Word format.

Updated annually.  ISBN 1-58012-058-X. Price: $129.00

Reviews

"Age Discrimination Litigation is an excellent book on an area of the law that contains many traps for the unwary. I give it my highest recommendation."

— David L. Lee, CBA Record

"Overall, users should find this volume and its accompanying CD-ROM to be a comprehensive publication valuable to novices and practitioners experienced in this area of law."

— Lawrence R. Meyer

Legal Information Alert (Volume 20, Issue #1), Alert Publications, Inc., Chicago, IL. www.alertpub.com

Related Titles:

Federal Employment Jury Instructions

Litigating Sexual Harassment & Sex Discrimination Cases

Model Interrogatories

More Employment Law Publications