- A retirement community in Georgia fired a 78-year-old receptionist because of her age, the EEOC said.
- A month before, the company recognized her as one of its employees of the year.
- As life expectancy increases, more people are working into old age.
A retirement community in Columbus, Georgia, fired a 78-year-old receptionist because of her age shortly after she was taken to the hospital for hypertension, a federal agency said.
Covenant Woods Retirement Community and its owner, BrightSpace Senior Living, agreed in late April to pay $78,000 to settle an age and disability discrimination lawsuit filed in February 2024 by the U.S. Commission on Equal Opportunities. employment chances.
The worker, who had been a receptionist since 2007, was terminated in February 2022, the EEOC said in the lawsuit.
She has already received good feedback during her annual evaluations, including being recognized in January 2022 as one of Covenant Woods’ 2021 Employees of the Year, he wrote.
However, some members of the retirement community’s management team had suggested he retire. When the receptionist took medical leave in 2017, at age 74, the office manager repeatedly asked her why she hadn’t retired, according to the lawsuit.
On February 10, 2022, the receptionist suffered a high blood pressure incident while at work and was taken to the hospital. She was released two days later, the EEOC said, and doctors later told her it was the result of dehydration.
When she returned to work later that month, she met with the office manager and general manager, who asked her how long she planned to continue working and whether she should do so, according to the EEOC.
They also suggested he travel and visit relatives. The receptionist, who was 78 at the time, said she planned to continue working for another two or three years.
But the CEO responded that the company had lost confidence in her ability to perform her duties, citing the blood pressure incident earlier this month as an example, the EEOC said.
The general manager told the receptionist she could either work one day a week, be transferred to an unspecified position in another department, or volunteer without pay, according to the lawsuit. The receptionist declined these options.
She then received a letter from the CEO saying her employment ended as a “business decision” because the company had lost confidence in her ability to perform her duties, the EEOC said. This was later confirmed in a letter from BrightSpace’s HR director.
In the lawsuit, the EEOC said the employee was fired “because of her age and disability or perceived disability,” in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The companies agreed to pay $50,000 in compensatory damages and $28,000 in wages to settle the charges.
“At Covenant Woods and BrightSpace Senior Living, we resolved this case due to the cost of litigation,” Brian Hendricks, BrightSpace’s chief financial officer, told CBS News in a statement. “We do not admit any wrongdoing or discriminatory conduct as part of this resolution.”
As life expectancy increases, the U.S. workforce is aging.
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 11 million people employed in 2023 were age 65 or older, or 6.8% of workers age 16 or older. This represents an increase from 3.3% of workers 20 years ago.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibits age discrimination against individuals age 40 or older, including in hiring and firing decisions.
Earlier this year, a Louisiana manufacturing and distribution company agreed to pay a former employee $105,000 for firing her after she refused to retire at age 65 in another EEOC settlement.
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