Torrech-Hernandez v. General Electric Co. No. 07-1341 affirms a grant of summary judgment in an age discrimination case in favor of the defendant. As a matter of background there seems to have been some disagreement about how one of General Electric’s plants should have been run. Some people accused the plaintiff of being resistant to some changes in how the plant was run. However, the plaintiff (and perhaps others) accused GE of just being biased against older workers, pointing to comments made at the Hard Rock Café during some party. The plaintiff seems to have made an offer to leave (if given a severance package), and after that offer he was terminated. He did not utilize GE’s administrative grievance procedures. Yet, despite this GE announced his retirement and there was some disagreement about the final amount of severance pay. Summary judgment was granted to GE.
Read on.
The First begins by saying that the defendant, in seeking to resist summary judgment submitted a self-serving affidavit that contradicted its deposition testimony: namely regarding whether the plaintiff was performing well. The First says “By simultaneously proclaiming that Torrech was doing sufficiently well as plant manager that there were no plans to get rid of him, and that he was failing to meet work expectations in order to legitimize his dismissal, GE improperly attempts to play both sides against the middle.”
But the plaintiff still loses. He didn’t present evidence that he was really discharged (i.e. his constructive discharge claim fails – as he didn’t show that he was given no real choice but to quit) and he didn’t present evidence that the reasons given were a pretext.
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