Dive Brief:
- A federal judge on Thursday affirmed a jury’s age discrimination verdict in favor of an employee of Norfolk Southern’s Alabama Great Southern Railway Co. The worker claimed that he was removed from duty despite receiving medical clearance to perform his job.
- The plaintiff filed his complaint in 2023. He alleged that a superintendent made the removal decision out of fear that the plaintiff, then in his mid-60s, would be injured. His primary care physician and cardiologist cleared him to return, and the plaintiff completed two work evaluations, but he claimed that Norfolk Southern continued to refuse his reinstatement.
- The jury awarded the plaintiff nearly $800,000 in compensatory damages and an equivalent amount in liquidated damages. Age discrimination has been described as a persistent form of workplace bias despite legal efforts to address it, but recent cases have seen employers pay large sums over claims of age bias.
Dive Insight:
Age discrimination is a “persistent” issue, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in 2017 as it marked the 50th anniversary of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which prohibits employers from discharging or refusing to hire any individual because of their age, among other provisions. Recent data continues to bear this out: 90% of workers over 50 surveyed by Resume Now last year said they experienced ageism at work.
The plaintiff in the Norfolk Southern case claimed that his superintendent called him into a meeting days before his 65th birthday, whereupon the superintendent asked him, “why haven’t you retired?” The plaintiff said he replied that he was not ready to retire. The superintendent maintained that he would be pulling the plaintiff from service anyway over concerns about an on-the-job injury, according to the plaintiff.
The complaint described Norfolk Southern’s work evaluations, which required the plaintiff to perform a variety of physically demanding tasks. The second of the two tests lasted approximately one hour without breaks or water. The plaintiff said he completed the evaluations “without any problem,” with the second evaluator only commenting when the plaintiff skipped a ladder rung as he descended from a brake platform.
Norfolk Southern’s evaluator for the second test nonetheless issued a letter stating that the plaintiff had not passed the evaluation and had been deemed unfit to safely perform his job. The letter said the plaintiff could contact the company if his ability to do so safely improved and he successfully passed evaluation.
The plaintiff also claimed Norfolk Southern was effectively forcing him to retire, noting that he simultaneously could not draw short-term disability benefits because the company’s medical department classified him as being able to work. At the time of the complaint, he had been out of work for two years without income or insurance.
“The assertions that Plaintiff did not successfully complete the work evaluations are falsehoods designed to justify ongoing harassment and discrimination,” the plaintiff said in his complaint.
Other employers have paid large sums as a result of age bias claims. In 2025, a California jury granted more than $100 million to a former Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. employee who alleged that the company subjected her to discrimination and harassment because of her age. The plaintiff’s attorneys described the verdict as the largest of its kind in the U.S., though a judge trimmed the award significantly on appeal.
At the federal level, Congress has attempted several times to strengthen antidiscrimination protections for older workers, including through the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act.
