Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, RETALIATION—N.D. Ill.: Employee reassigned to new machine after complaint about manager advances reprisal and age bias claims, (Apr 2, 2025)

By Molly Platnick

The employee claimed her supervisor told her she “was old, and that maybe because of her age … was unable to perform her job the way that she should.”

A federal district court in Illinois denied a manufacturing company’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim an action brought by a former employee who alleged that, because of her age, she was reassigned to a job she could not perform and was fired because she reported her manager for rude and inappropriate conduct. The court rejected the argument the employee’s amended complaint did not plausibly plead a Title VII violation, finding there was a causal connection between her discharge and her HR complaint. Her ADEA disparate treatment and hostile work environment claims also advanced (Valdez v. The Jel Sert Co., No. 1:22-CV-05916 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 30, 2025)).

New machine. For seven years, the employee worked for the manufacturing company as a packer on one type of machine. At some point, a coworker whom she had complained about became her supervisor.

Age-related remark. In 2020, that supervisor allegedly transferred the employee to a new machine that she had never before operated. The employee claimed she asked three times to be trained to use the machine, but the supervisor told her she “was old, and that maybe because of her age … was unable to perform her job the way that she should.”

Sexual harassment complaint. Around this same time, a male manager purportedly yelled at her to fix the machine, and the employee reported this and his previous “inappropriate comments” to the company’s HR coordinator. The next day, she told her supervisor, who was sitting with the male manager, that she had lodged a sexual harassment complaint against the manager.

Fired. The employee was fired in September 2020. Although HR claimed it was because she “attempted to pressure an unnamed co-worker to lie on her behalf” regarding the male manager, it never told the employee who the coworker was and after reviewing her file, she found no records explaining or investigating why she had been fired.

The employee brought this suit in October 2022, alleging the company retaliated against her for reporting the manager’s harassment in violation of Title VII and discriminated against her because of her age and created a hostile work environment in violation of the ADEA.

Title VII retaliation. As to the employee’s retaliation claim, the court found the employee engaged in a protected activity when she complained about the male manager’s rude and inappropriate comments. Under Seventh Circuit precedent, reporting sexual discrimination is a protected activity if the claimant has a “sincere and reasonable belief” the conduct she is reporting is unlawful, so the employee does not need to prove the manager was actually sexually harassing her.

While the employee did not provide enough facts to support her claim, the court found HR’s reaction to her complaint gave rise to the inference she reasonably believed she was reporting sexual harassment. The HR coordinator allegedly responded “You have been sexually harassed this whole time!” when the employee approached her. The court determined this was adequate to at least suggest the employee’s activity was protected.

The issue for the causal connection element was whether the employee’s complaint adequately alleged the company’s decision to fire her was motivated by her reporting the manager’s inappropriate comments. Seventh Circuit case law holds that “suspicious timing and other allegations” create an inference of a causal connection. Here, the court considered it “suspicious” that the employee worked for the company for over 25 years without incident and was only dismissed after going to HR. The court saw this as “more than enough on causation to survive the dismissal motion.”

Age discrimination. Turning to the employee’s ADEA disparate treatment claim, the court found she clearly showed she was transferred to a new machine after 25 years and when she requested training to use it was disparaged with remarks about her age. She was then fired shortly after complaining she had been harassed, and there were “no criticisms about any poor performance” in her personnel file that might have offered an alternative explanation for her dismissal. These facts, said the court, created a reasonable inference that the employee was “set up to fail” when she was transferred to the new machine and that the manager transferred her to the new machine because of her age.

The court rejected the employee’s argument that she received higher pay than younger employees as indicative of age discrimination. The Supreme Court ruled an employment decision caused by age (i.e., a higher salary) does not violate the ADEA. Thus, firing someone because they are paid more is not age discrimination.

As to her hostile work environment claim, the employee referenced only one comment about her age and the manager’s refusal to train her to use the machine to which she had inexplicably been transferred after 25 years. The court saw this as a “close call,” but ultimately sufficient to plausibly allege a claim for hostile work environment, reasoning the managers taunted the employee based on her age and negatively impacted her performance by transferring her to the machine.

The case is No. 1:22-CV-05916.

Judge: Chang, E.

Attorneys: Jorge Sanchez (Lopez & Sanchez) for Maribel Valdez. Brian Keith Jackson (Laner Muchin) for The Jel Sert Co.

Companies: The Jel Sert Co.

Cases: AgeDiscrimination Discrimination Retaliation Discharge IllinoisNews