A Florida man should not have had his age discrimination case thrown out, even though both he and his replacement were both in their 40s. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decided to reverse a summary judgment in favor of the man’s employer, stating that an age discrimination case requires only a “substantially younger” replacement and that the employee’s allegation that age bias was the reason the employer replaced him with a man seven years his junior was enough to meet this “substantially younger” standard.
The employee, Robert Liebman, had worked for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company for 28 years when MetLife fired him in 2013. He started in 1985 as a sales representative and, by 2013, had risen to the position of Managing Director of the insurer’s West Palm Beach and Boca Raton offices. At the time of his termination, Liebman was 49 years old. Liebman sued MetLife for violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The employer asked the trial court to grant summary judgment in its favor on the age discrimination claim, noting that the employee that it selected to replace Liebman was also over 40 years of age and, therefore, a member of the same protected class as Liebman. The trial court sided with the employer and issued a summary judgment order in favor of the insurer.