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Stroke Victim Prevails on Disability and Age Discrimination Claims

In the recent case of Sandell v. Taylor-Listug Inc., a California Court of Appeal held that an employee of a guitar company had presented sufficient evidence of disability and age discrimination to proceed to trial. Robert Sandell began his employment with Taylor-Listug in 2004 as vice-president of sales. Six months later he suffered a stroke after a chiropractic treatment. When he returned to work, he was using a cane and had noticeably slower speech, and the owner of the company remarked that if he did not make a full recovery he would be fired.

When he was fired a few days after his sixtieth birthday, three years later, Sandell sued the company for disability and age discrimination. Taylor-Listug moved for summary judgment, arguing that he was terminated because he had not produced satisfactory sales results. The trial court agreed, granted the summary judgment motion in favor of Taylor-Listug, and threw the case out of court. Sandell appealed.

The appeals court overruled the lower court’s decision, and found that the evidence given by the company was pretextual, particularly in light of Sandell’s relatively favorable performance evaluations. The court also discredited declarations from other employees of the company complaining about Sandell’s performance because the employees had not brought the complaints to management while he was working for the company. As to the age claim, the court found that even though the company waited a year and a half to replace Sandell, and despite the fact that he was hired and fired by the same person in a short period of time, did not conclusively overcome the fact that the replacement was significantly younger than Sandell. Therefore, the court overruled the summary judgment motion on the age discrimination issue as well, and ordered that that issue be sent to the jury.

What This Means for Employers:

Taking any detrimental action toward an employee with a disability allows that person to claim discrimination quite easily. Employers must make sure that they can fully justify the rationale for the action based upon legitimate factors. It is imperative that employers document employment files and engage in the interactive process when an employee appears to be disabled.

The goal of this article is to provide employers with current labor and employment law information. The contents should neither be interpreted as, nor construed as legal advice or opinion. The reader should consult with Barsamian & Moody at (559) 248-2360 or toll-free at (888) 322-2573, for individual responses to questions or concerns regarding any given situation.

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