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Thursday, January 05, 2012
Ind. Courts - Indy Star subject of age discrimination suit
"Former Indianapolis Star columnist’s age discrimination claim set for jury trial in U.S. District Court on April 24" is the heading of a press release the ILB has received A quote:
The claim by former Indianapolis Star columnist Susan J. Guyett that her layoff from the newspaper in December 2008 resulted from age discrimination has been scheduled for trial by jury in United States District Court starting April 24. The Indianapolis Star is owned by Gannett Co., Inc.More here from Poynter.com.In December, Chief Judge Richard L. Young denied a motion by the Indianapolis Star to end the case. In his 17-page order, Chief Judge Young said that the explanations by Star Editor and Vice President Dennis Ryerson for terminating Guyett while retaining younger staffers – and replacing her as columnist with a younger reporter – were contradictory and provided evidence supporting her claim sufficient to require a jury’s verdict on the age discrimination claim.
“Plaintiff [Guyett] has cast doubt on the Star’s proffered reasons for the termination, and, accordingly her claim of discrimination is to be determined by a jury,” Chief Judge Young wrote in his order. The claim cites violation of the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).
Guyett’s attorney, Kathleen A. DeLaney of DeLaney & DeLaney LLC in Indianapolis, IN said that the evidence showed that the Star artificially structured its layoff criteria to get around the paper’s union contract seniority protections and to hide age discrimination. “Instead of following the seniority provision in a fair and appropriate manner, the Star attempted to manipulate the provision’s meaning after the fact to justify Ms. Guyett’s termination,” she said. “The Star terminated Ms. Guyett under false pretenses and replaced her with a reporter twenty years younger.”
Susan Guyett wrote the popular “Talk of Our Town” column in the Star, the successor to the “Cityscape” column that she proposed to the Star, from 1999 until December 2008. At the time of the Star layoffs in December 2008, Guyett was 59 years old and had received positive performance appraisals. In fact, Ryerson had described her as “uniquely qualified” to handle “a very unusual beat,” according to Chief Judge Young’s order. * * *
The trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday, April 24, 2012, at 9:00 a.m. at the Birch Bayh Federal Building and United States Courthouse in Indianapolis.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 5, 2012 11:08 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts