RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Former IBMers who are suing IBM over alleged age discrmination lost a round in their ongoing legal fight Thursday when a federal judge in New York toss a consolidated move seeking to combine more than 20 suits, according to Law360 and Reuters.
The workers were challenging arbitration agreements signed when they retired, Law360 noted.
The group of workers were seeking to join another age discrimination suit.
“U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan said the fact that the agreements barred the workers from joining a proposed class action lawsuit against IBM did not strip them of any legal rights, and so the agreements were enforceable,” Reuters reported.
Some 26 people were involved.
Reports: IBM called older workers ‘dinobabies,’ wanted them ‘extinct’
“The plaintiffs sued last year to invalidate the agreements after a different Manhattan federal judge blocked them from joining a separate proposed class action filed in 2018 making the same claims against IBM because they had signed arbitration agreements,” Reuters added.
IBM has yet to comment.
Plantiffs’ attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan of Lichten & Liss-Riordan has not commented.
Read the full Reuters story online:
Reuters: Appeals court rules ex-IBM employees can’t sue for age discrimination as a group
