10th Circuit Broadens Requirements for Waiving ADEA Claims

• Posted by Geoffrey G. Gussis on September 24th, 2005


• Filed in Employment Law, Litigation, Risk Management & Compliance

Think your procedures for obtaining valid waivers of ADEA claims are adequate? If you’re in the 10th Circuit (or if you are wisely monitoring potential trends that may affect you in the future) you may be in for a surprise:

"Employers’ historical understanding of what they must communicate to employees asked to release age discrimination claims may be fatally insufficient, following a recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Employers seeking waivers of Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) claims in accordance with the Older Workers’ Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA) now must clearly explain not only who has been selected for layoff, but why selections were made.

Reading the OWBPA requirements closely, the court in Kruchkowski v. Weyerhauser, No. 04-7118 (September 13, 2005), concluded that the company failed to provide sufficiently personalized notice to employees of its reasons for choosing them in its reduction-in-force (RIF), and that the waiver was therefore invalid. The court’s ruling permits the 16 plaintiffs (more than half of the total number of employees laid off) to pursue age discrimination claims against their former employer."

Link: Littler Mendelson (hat tip to the BenefitsCounsel blog for the tip).