A Seasons 52 restaurant.

The national restaurant chain Seasons 52 has agreed to pay $2.85 million to resolve claims it unfairly discriminated against job applicants over the age of 40, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Thursday.

The EEOC's settlement with 35 Seasons 52 restaurants requires the company to implement additional mandatory training for employees and managers, hire an external and internal compliance monitor to track progress for three years and create new policies to prevent skewing hiring to younger workers.

Targeting hiring practices is more difficult to prove than discrimination claims brought by current employees. Unsuccessful job applicants often do not file suit. In 2016, there were 2,000 claims of age bias in the hiring process and 10,000 claims from current workers against their employers.

Meanwhile, courts of appeals are split on whether companies can be held liable for discriminating against older job seekers. This month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said job applicants can pursue claims against employers. The Eleventh Circuit came to the opposite conclusion in 2016.

The Seasons 52 complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleged that since 2010 Seasons 52, owned by Florida-based Darden Restaurant Inc., discriminated against older applicants for positions such as servers, hosts and bartenders.

The hiring managers allegedly told candidates they preferred “younger and fresher” applicants or called older workers “too experienced.”

The restaurant denied the claims in the complaint and under the terms of the settlement did not admit any wrongdoing. Lawyers from Seyfarth Shaw and Akerman represented Darden. A Seyfarth attorney did not respond to request for comment.

The EEOC also presented statistical analysis from an economist that found the makeup of the workforce could not be possible with neutral policies, EEOC trial attorney Kristen Foslid said Thursday.

Daniel Seltzer, an EEOC lawyer, said the anecdotal evidence included questions and comments about age. The hiring policies themselves were not the issue, but in some cases questions about dates of birth, lifestyle and health were asked, the attorneys said.

The job applicants, age 40 and older, who applied to Seasons 52 at the 35 restaurants that opened since 2010, will receive compensation through the settlement. So far, there are 250 class members and more will be able to file suit, Foslid said.

The parties agreed to hire Fred Alvarez, of counsel to Jones Day, to serve as the independent compliance monitor. The Silicon Valley-based lawyer will monitor compliance with the settlement terms.

Alvarez focuses on compliance advice, conducting internal investigations and serving as a court-appointed monitor of class action decrees. During the Reagan administration, he served as assistant secretary of labor, managing the department's wage-and-hour division and the federal contract compliance program office. He also formerly served as an EEOC commissioner.

Robert Weisberg, an EEOC lawyer, said the attorneys involved in the Seasons 52 case agreed on Alvarez based on his past work on compliance matters in significant discrimination cases.

 

The consent decree is posted below:

 

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