Wrongful termination · Federal · ADEA
Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc.
530 U.S. 133 · Supreme Court of the United States · 2000
A 57-year-old supervisor with roughly 40 years of service was fired for allegedly failing to maintain accurate attendance records. He produced evidence that the timekeeping records were in fact accurate and that a decision-maker had made age-related remarks.
The Court held that a plaintiff can prevail by showing the employer's stated reason is false, together with the prima facie case — no separate independent proof of discrimination is always required.
Judgment for the employer, reversed
Reported outcome
Reversed; the jury verdict for the employee was restored.
Completeness reading
95/100
ignita-completeness-v1 · illustrative
Preview. Not legal advice. Attorney-reviewed: false.
The events, kept in order.
Drawn from the reported decision. Nothing is interpreted at this stage — each entry simply holds when it happened and what happened.
Step 1
Long tenure with supervisory duties
Roughly 40 years of service, latterly supervising a production department.
Step 2
Age-related remarks by a decision-maker
Comments indicating he was too old for the job were attributed to a decision-maker.
Protected activity or key conduct
Step 3
Audit of attendance records
An internal review concluded he had failed to maintain accurate attendance records.
Step 4
Termination
He was fired on the recordkeeping ground and replaced by a substantially younger worker.
What the engine reads here
The decisive material was documentary: the very records the employer said were mishandled. When a stated reason points at a document, that document becomes the most valuable exhibit in the file.
Pattern and class signal
Individual pattern. Age-related remarks by a decision-maker are, however, the kind of repeated signal that connects separate individual records across a company.
Preview. Not legal advice. Attorney-reviewed: false.
Your own record
Every matter here began as small, ordinary entries someone almost didn't keep.