Schaefer Halleen founder and CEO Larry Schaefer moderated and led a panel discussion on “Cutting Edge ADEA Issues in Litigation” at the May 19-20 Annual Upper Midwest Employment Law Institute in St. Paul.
This presentation, and the detailed materials Larry assisted in preparing, focused on strategies to overcome significant obstacles at summary judgment and at trial in this huge area of discrimination law.
In particular, Larry stressed how the “but for” causation in these cases does not mean that age bias has to be proven to be the sole reason for adverse action, and how the Minnesota Human Rights Act equates this standard with basic tort law causation, where the age bias simply has to be proven to be the “outcome determinative” reason for the adverse action.
Larry and this panel of experienced employment litigators also taught this huge audience of lawyers and in-house counsel how evidence of the treatment of comparable employees should be developed and presented in these cases, to increase the chance of favorable outcomes.
