I need help with this! Beginning in 1986, Paul Rangel was a sales professional f
ID: 364159 • Letter: I
Question
I need help with this!
Beginning in 1986, Paul Rangel was a sales professional for the pharmaceutical company S-A. Rangel had satisfactory performance reviews until 2010, when S-A issued aggressive new “Expectations” guidelines with sales call quotas and other standards that he failed to meet. After a year of negative performance reviews, Rangel—who was then fifty years old—was terminated as part of a nationwide reduction in force of all sales professionals who had not met the “Expectations” guidelines.
Did S-A engage in age discrimination?
What must Rangel establish to make a case under the ADEA? (This is the RULE of law that you will be applying) Can he meet these requirements? (Your APPLICATION and CONCLUSION.) Explain fully.
Imagine you are an executive working for S-A and have been asked to meet with Rangal's lawyer. What sort of information might you want to gather before going into this meeting? Are there facts that are not given in the scenario that you think are critical to knowing how strong Rangal's case is?
Explanation / Answer
From Rangel's side:
This is clearly a case of age discrimination and under the law of ADEA the company can't terminate him. As per the law any employer can't expel or exclude any employee - basis his/her age. This clearly is a discrimination based on age and violation of the law.
An employee who has been working and achieving satisfactory performance reviews all through his life, has been terminated just on the 'expectations' guidelines of a single year. Even these guildelines were formulated in a biased manner with aggressive targets and leading to the failure of achiveing them. This clearly points at a sinister motive in designing these targets and 'expectations' guidelines, which is to fail these aged employees and terminate them.
Under the law, it is unlawful of any employer or employement agency to prohibit certain sections of the public basis their age unless the occupation clearly requires a certain age to function. Thus Paul Rangel clearly meets the requirements of the law and can establish that in spite of his good performace has been discriminated and terminated merely on the reason of Age.
As an executive of S-A:
Before meeting Rangel's lawyer I need to be sure of the facts pertaining to the case here. Few critical elements like how many employees in total have been terminated, whats their age bracket, how many achieved the aggressive sales taregts, how many were exemot from these 'Expectations' guidelines (If any), was the reduction in sales professionals necessary, if yes how would it affect the company if done or not done. Along with all these, data on Rangel's individual performance through his career in general and the past year in particular has to be collected. Have there been any indications for correction or praises over his work, from his superiors/supervisors over his performance has to be noted.
All these facts are highly critical to know before establishing the strength of Rangel's case.