Partner George Fagan and Associate Hunter Williams successfully argued for the granting of their motion for a summary judgment in favor of a local car dealership company.
In 2019, the company sold a car dealership they operated and subsequently had to lay off around 100 employees, including the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff alleged that the company unfairly terminated his employment based on his age.
The Plaintiff successfully established a prima facie case of age discrimination, but L&A attorneys George and Hunter showed that the company had legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons to terminate the Plaintiff’s employment due to the sale and were able to rebut the presumption of discrimination. The Plaintiff attempted to overcome this rebuttal with indirect evidence of alleged discriminatory comments over a period of several years in an attempt to show that the non-discriminatory reasons for his termination were mere pretext. However, the L&A team was able to show that such alleged comments were neither proximate to the decision to terminate the Plaintiff nor sufficient to establish proof of pretext.
On October 3, 2023, Judge Barry W. Ashe ruled that the undisputed material facts failed to prove the Plaintiff’s claim for age-based discrimination and dismissed the claim with prejudice. This ruling is an effective dismissal of the Plaintiff’s case against L&A’s client.
WestLaw Case Citation: GEORGE A. RHODES v. BRYAN CHEVROLET, LLC, et al., No. CV 22-1145, 2023 WL 6442744 (E.D. La. Oct. 3, 2023)