Costa Mesa age discrimination attorney

Proving Age Discrimination in the California Workplace

October 22, 2013 | by Nassiri Law

Recently, a veteran newspaper reporter, heralded for her deft and ample coverage of the crime and courts beat in seedy Southern Florida, was recognized for her skilled fast embrace of new technology, with an editor publicly calling her a “social media star.”

Little more than a year later, she was offered a “voluntary buyout,” which a thinly veiled attempt by a company to shed older (i.e., more expensive) workers. Our age discrimination lawyers in Costa Mesa believe that this approach is not only discriminatory, it’s short-sighted, as it ends up reducing the overall quality of the finished product.

Still, such buy-outs are not technically illegal, even if they do blatantly target the over-55 crowd (every single one of the 40 employees at the paper offered the buyout was over the age of 55). Administrators can get around it by making it “voluntary.” The publisher reportedly told the employees in explaining the deal that, “surely, many of you have contemplated retirement and, if not, could probably use the skills honed during decades in the news business to land other jobs.”

California Age Discrimination Lawsuit Filed by Former Reporter

October 3, 2013 | by Nassiri Law

In the field of visual journalism, there is no question that appearance matters and image is important.

But there was once a time when a reporter’s older age was viewed as a highly-valued trait, something that offered an air of credibility to the broadcast. Think Walter Cronkite or Helen Thomas.

However, a recent Southern California age discrimination lawsuit reveals that, unfortunately, that stance might well have shifted within the industry, or at least in portions of it.

Age Discrimination Scrutiny Befalls Mandatory Retirement Policies

September 5, 2013 | by Nassiri Law

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is coming down hard on professional services firm Price Waterhouse Coopers, insisting that the large company do away with its mandatory partner retirement age policies.

Our Costa Mesa age discrimination attorneys know it’s not the first time the government has taken aim at the firm for this practice, which would impact some 60 partners. The EEOC contends that such policy is discriminatory. However, it has not, even up to this point, taken any legal action to strong-arm the firm into compliance, though it has started to fire off similar warning shots to other large accounting firms, such as KPMG and Deloitte.

In response, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has warned the EEOC to back off, contending that the polices are legal because they are applicable only to partners, and not employees. However, the EEOC maintains those workers are in fact employees.