Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—AGE—N.D. Ill.: Top sales producer, fired at age 64, cannot advance bias claim, (Aug 26, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

The employee’s theory of a longstanding scheme to fire him because of his age was “too divorced from the factual record to create a genuine issue of material fact.”

A 64-year-old sales development manager who was placed on a PIP and later terminated despite having hit 151 percent of his sales quota and having been named a top producer as a result failed to show he was fired due to his age, a federal court in Illinois ruled. While it was undisputed he exceeded his sales quota, that did not render invalid the company’s complaints about other aspects of his performance, said the court, granting summary judgment against his ADEA claim (Wilde v. EPS US, LLC, No. 23 cv 4634 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 25, 2025)).

PIP. Hired by the company’s predecessor in 2015, the employee was promoted to Account Executive, Named Accounts two years later and to Sales Development Manager in 2019 when he was 60 years old. In 2022, he was at 151 percent of his sales quota. Despite that, he was placed on a performance improvement plan in November by his manager due to concerns about his sales hygiene and pipeline management.

In his email to the employee announcing the PIP, the manager explained that it was a “last attempt” to get him to do his job properly as “all other methods have failed.” The employee was tasked with improving in four areas: (1) utilizing Salesforce to accurately reflect the current pipeline; (2) detailing all opportunities to reflect the current stage of the sale and relevant information; (3) being ready to discuss all opportunities at weekly 1:1 meetings or with any member of leadership; and (4) adhering to the sales process.

“This is a must.” Although the PIP was supposed to run through December 23, the manager purportedly extended it. The employee claimed, however, that he was never notified of the extension. The PIP extension document was dated January 27, 2023, and the process for terminating the employee for failing to meet the PIP goals began on January 28 when the manager emailed an HR rep stating his intent to fire him. In response, the head of sales replied, “This is a must.” The manager’s stated reasons for terminating the employee included his inability to update Salesforce, his lack of process and urgency, his poor pipeline build, upset customers, and his sloppiness and forgetfulness.

Holistic approach. In his subsequent lawsuit, the employee argued that under the holistic approach there was direct evidence showing the company terminated him because of his age, including his manager’s comments at a January 2022 sales meeting in which he stated that the industry needed youth because everyone at that meeting was old. But that comment, the court observed, was made a year before the employee’s termination, was not made in reference to an adverse employment action and was not made directly about the employee.

The employee also claimed that after he turned 60, the company publicly praised him while privately casting his performance in a negative light. Though he pointed to a 2019 email from his manager to HR and the sales head mentioning his poor performance, the manager also stated that he liked his “attitude, grind, and approach” and suggested that he would do better in a regional role. It did not suggest, said the court, that age had anything to do with the employee’s struggles.

Secretive scheme. The employee also pointed to the sales head’s response to the manager’s email in which he listed some things to talk about but stated that there was “no need to email.” According to the employee, this was part of a secretive and undocumented scheme showing discriminatory intent. Calling the statement “innocuous when viewed in context,” the court noted that the email was sent at night and the sales head testified that he did not need a response at that time. Further, while the list contained a question about whether the plan was to ultimately replace the employee, it also included a question about how to help him improve and none of the comments could be attributed to his age.

Coded documents. As to the employee’s contention that the sales head and manager were sending coded documents about firing him, while he pointed to an email thread between the two discussing replacing him and commenting on his notes in Salesforce being old, he did not explain how this exchange was coded or how it was evidence of age discrimination.

Termination process. The employee next argued that his termination was the result of a facially deficient process from which a jury could infer a predetermined outcome. Specifically, he argued that the PIP was never properly extended and the documentation for the extension was dated just a day before the beginning of the termination process. But even if he did not know about the extension, the court observed, that did not mean the process was flawed as there was evidence the manager and sales head emailed HR about extending it the day before the PIP was scheduled to end and the PIP stated that it could be extended at the manager’s discretion after a discussion with HR.

Nor was there any evidence to support his contention that the timing of the PIP extension documentation indicated something was amiss. There was evidence the documentation was just delayed and the conversation with HR had already occurred. Based on this evidence, said the court, no reasonable jury could conclude that the employee was terminated because of his age.

McDonnell Douglas. Alternatively, the employee argued that under the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework, he met the company’s legitimate business expectations because he met the sales quota and its reasons for terminating him were pretextual. Because the question about whether he met the company’s legitimate expectations merged with the question of pretext, the court turned to the employee’s evidence of pretext.

While it was undisputed he hit 151 percent of his sales quota and was named a top producer, that alone was not enough to establish pretext, said the court, as it did not render invalid the company’s complaints about other aspects of his performance such as his failure to keep Salesforce updated, follow the sale process, and timely respond to customers.

Performance review comments. For his part, the employee pointed to comments by his manager in his and others’ performance reviews, including a statement in his 2020 annual review that “We are measured on sales and nothing else.” This comment, however, was in response to the employee’s goal to stop getting pulled into other aspects of the business and thus was in response to that goal. Further, said the court, the manager’s comments on other employees’ reviews about the importance of hitting their sales numbers were in response to goals about those employees hitting their numbers and did not establish that the only performance metric the company used was sales figures.

The employee also argued that other sales managers received negative feedback about their Salesforce etiquette but were not terminated or placed on a PIP. But the employee also received this feedback in 2019 and was not placed on a PIP or terminated at that time and thus this did not show that when he was terminated, the company’s complaints about his Salesforce hygiene were pretextual.

Nor did the employee dispute that several customers requested that he be removed from their accounts or that he would skip steps or act outside the company’s sales process. Accordingly, the court found he failed to show the company’s reasons for terminating him were pretextual and that he met its legitimate expectations.

Similarly situated employees. Finally, the court stated, he failed to show that similarly situated employees were treated more favorably. Though he identified other employees who received some of the same comments in their annual reviews in 2019 about failing to update Salesforce, this did not establish that they continued this deficient conduct in 2023 when he was fired. Accordingly, the court granted summary judgment to the company on his ADEA claim.

The case is No. 23 cv 4634.

Judge: Harjani, S.

Attorneys: Uche O. Asonye (Asonye & Associates) for Jim Wilde. Jennifer S. Park (Dentons Cohen & Grigsby) for EPS US, LLC.

Companies: EPS US, LLC

Cases: AgeDiscrimination Discrimination Discharge IllinoisNews